Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

SAMUEL MONTAGUE AND CO. LIMITED BILL [Lords]

Read the Third time and passed, without amendment.

SCOTTISH AMICABLE LIFE ASSURANCE SOCIETY BILL

Read the Third time and passed.

SUFFOLK COASTAL DISTRICT COUNCIL BILL

TEES TUNNEL BILL

Order for Third Reading read.

[Queen's Consent, on behalf of the Crown, signified].

Read the Third time and passed.

BRITISH TRANSPORT DOCKS BILL (By Order)

LONDON TRANSPORT BILL (By Order)

COUNTY OF SOUTH GLAMORGAN BILL [Lords] (By Order)

Orders for Second Reading read.

To be read a Second time upon Thursday next.

ROYAL COUNTY OF BERKSHIRE (PUBLIC ENTERTAINMENT) PROVISIONAL ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL

Read the Third time and passed.

Oral Answers to Questions — SOCIAL SERVICES

Pensioners

Mr. Gwilym Roberts: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services what are the latest figures available for the percentage of men who are drawing their pension at 65, 66, 67, 68, 69 and 70 years of age; and how these compare with the corresponding percentages 10 years ago and 20 years ago.

The Under-Secretary of State for Social Services (Mr. Eric Deakins): I will, with permission, circulate the available information in the Official Report.
The figures show that the percentages of men in these age groups drawing their pensions have risen substantially over the last 20 years.

Mr. Roberts: Does my hon. Friend therefore accept that, in general, men are tending to retire earlier? That being so, does he agree that, even if the cost of reducing the pensionable age for men to 60 at the moment is prohibitive, there is an urgent need for the Government to give a 10-year commitment, or a commitment over a somewhat shorter period, that the age will be reduced in this way? That would mean that the cost would be minimal. Therefore, may I appeal to my hon. Friend to give a date—

Mr. Speaker: Order. That is enough to ask the Minister.

Mr. Deakins: I agree with my hon. Friend's first supplementary question. There is a tendency towards earlier retirement on the part of men, and as a Government we are certainly not opposed in principle to the idea of a common minimum pension age between men and women. However, the cost in present circumstances—

Mr. Roberts: What about a date in the future?

Mr. Deakins: The cost in present circumstances rules this out in the foreseeable future. We cannot at one and the same time both improve the position of existing pensioners and afford the cost of lowering the retirement age for men.

Mr. Kenneth Clarke: Are the Government still determined to try to reverse the parliamentary defeat inflicted on them on the earnings rule for those retirement pensioners who stay in work? If they are, when can we expect legislation to be brought before the House?

Mr. Deakins: As the hon. Gentleman and the House will know, an announcement was made earlier this year about the Government's intention to introduce legislation on this matter, and it should be introduced in the next Session.

Mr. Greville Janner: My hon. Friend has said that it is the cost that prevents the Government from lowering the retirement age of men from 65 to 60. Will he say how much he estimates would be saved by not having to pay unemployment benefit and, in his Department, social security benefits to the men who find work and will no longer be on unemployment benefit, because they are filling jobs vacated by the men allowed to retire?

Mr. Deakins: It is not possible to say, because we do not know what is the pattern of retirement for men between 60 and 65, nor, indeed, would we know what take-up there would be of the younger unemployed to replace the older men who would have retired earlier. This is very much a matter of speculation and estimation. I believe that any guesstimate that I gave would be completely inadequate.

Mr. Marten: Presumably, in view of the Sex Discrimination Act, if the pension retirement age were raised to 62½ for women and reduced to 62½ for men, there would be no extra cost. Is that right?

Mr. Deakins: I am sorry to disappoint the hon. Gentleman and the House, but although it might seem that there would be no extra cost, we have worked out such figures as we can purely on the basis of national insurance contributions, supplementary benefits, and the national insurance scheme generally, and we find that there would indeed be a net cost.

Mr. George Rodgers: Would it not be true to say that the figures available demonstrate that last year, at least, about £262 million was spent by the Government in redundancy payments, sickness payments and unemployment payments for the age groups between 60 and 64?

Would that not represent a substantial contribution towards lowering the age as indicated?

Mr. Deakins: We have done the sums that we can. The sums mentioned by my hon. Friend are an element in the calculation, but however we do the calculations they will work out as a massive net cost on the total economy of this country.

Following is the information:


MEN 65 TO 70 IN GREAT BRITAIN IN RECEIPT OF RETIREMENT PENSION EXPRESSED AS PERCENTAGES OF THE TOTAL MALE POPULATION IN THAT AGE GROUP


Age
1955*
1965
1975


65
47·6
68·4
78·5


66
73·3
85·6


67
78·2
87·9


68
81·5
90·4


69
87·3
94·0


70
†
99·3
99·5


* The numbers of the male population in individual age bands are not available for 1955.


† No figure available.

Disregard (One-Parent Families)

Mr. Mawby: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services when he proposes to introduce legislation to raise the supplementary disregard for one-parent families.

The Secretary of State for Social Services (Mr. David Ennals): I shall introduce the amending legislation tomorrow.

Mr. Mawby: Many hon. Members on both sides of the House will be very grateful for that reply, but is not the problem one of lifting one-parent families out of supplementary benefit dependence without introducing a new means-tested benefit? Will the right hon. Gentleman study the possibility of converting income tax allowance into positive tax credits.

Mr. Ennals: I cannot say that I shall now give consideration to a scheme that was widely considered in the House. We are always considering what further we can do. A number of proposals have been put forward in the Finer Report and they are receiving the Government's attention. The House will be glad that the legislation is to be introduced tomorrow.

Mr. Ovenden: I welcome my right hon. Friend's announcement. However, will he look again at the idea of introducing a supplementary benefit disregard that takes account of the number of children included in one-parent families,


rather than a flat rate disregard throughout the whole range.

Mr. Ennals: The trouble with that is that it is extremely complicated to do and it is costly, from the point of view of manpower, to do it. The more disregards one has, as well as the variations of disregard, the more it undermines the principle of supplementary benefit, because if one has too many disregards, clearly that does not help the poorest parents, who are those principally helped by supplementary benefit.

Sir George Young: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that raising the disregard to £6 works out to giving an extra 8½p a week to each of the 280,000 families on the supplementary benefit? Is that really the full extent of the Government's support for one-parent families?

Mr. Ennals: No, of course not. The CHIB scheme has already been introduced, and a statement will be made later today concerning child benefit.

Junior Hospital Doctors (Contract)

Mr. Patrick Jenkin: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services when he expects to finalise the junior hospital doctor contract.

Mr. George Gardiner: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services when he expects to finalise the junior hospital doctors' contract.

Mr. Ennals: Negotiations on a number of detailed amendments to junior hospital doctors' terms and conditions of service, consequential on the main agreement reached with the professions at the end of last year, are still continuing, and it is hoped that they will be completed very shortly.

Mr. Jenkin: Is it true that at a meeting last month the Department and the junior doctors' representatives came to an agreement, only to find that it was vetoed by the Department of Employment as being contrary to the pay policy? Is it not rather ridiculous that the right hon. Gentleman's own officials should not have been aware of the limitations of the Government's pay policy?

Mr. Ennals: That is not so. Of course my officials are aware of pay policy and all its implications. However, the ques

tion of doctors' terms and conditions of service raises a number of difficult issues. The right hon. Gentleman raised one of them on the last occasion on which I answered Questions, concerning the amount of money that is paid for work done over and above the normal hours. There are these difficulties that we are trying to sort out.

Mr. Moonman: To avoid the anxieties of the past, will my right hon. Friend give serious consideration to entering into negotiations on this matter directly with the Junior Hospital Doctors' Association, instead of having the impediment and interference of the BMA?

Mr. Ennals: I cannot say that that will be the arrangement. I shall not change the basis on which the profession is represented and on which we have negotiations with the profession.

Mr. Gardiner: Is it not iniquitous that the junior doctors should in good faith enter into these negotiations only to have this spanner thrown into the works? How soon does the Minister expect to bring this matter to a conclusion?

Mr. Ennals: No spanner has been thrown into the works. The two sides have reached agreement on a large number of points. There is, in fact, only one significant issue outstanding at present. There has been a great deal of progress. The hon. Gentleman ought not to think that things are going backwards.

Mr. Pavitt: In this contract has full account been taken of the fact that of their 43½ hours on call in hospitals it is quite possible for junior hospital doctors to be working an emergency call service for general medical service for general practitioners? Has any assessment of the numbers doing this been made? What action has the negotiating committee taken on this matter?

Mr. Ennals: We are making an assessment of the explanation of the reasons why there has been a heavier expenditure in fulfilling the contract with junior hospital doctors. It applies for a number of reasons. Some have contracted for rather longer working hours than the average time worked out under the former system. Certainly more A units have been contracted for than was originally assumed. But these problems are not


surprising, as one part of a major negotiation carried out with the junior hospital doctors.

Mr. Grylls: Will the right hon. Gentleman comment on Oxfam's report about the employment of doctors from overseas, which Oxfam said was not a very good thing for overseas countries? What is he doing to extend medical recruitment here to see that we take in fewer doctors from overseas and more from this country?

Mr. Ennals: I have commented directly to Oxfam on its most interesting report. It is true that we are excessively dependent upon the services of doctors from overseas. That is why we are increasing and will continue to increase the intake of student doctors from this country, in order that we can be more dependent upon our own doctors. In the meantime, there are standards that have to be maintained. However, it is our hope that many of the doctors from overseas who have sought training in this country will eventually return to the countries from which they came, to use the experience that they have gained here.

Over-Sixties

Mr. Skinner: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services what is his most recent estimate of the number of working men over 60 years of age.

The Minister of State, Department of Health and Social Security (Mr. Stanley Orme): In 1974, the latest date for which a figure is available, about 1½ million men aged 60 or over worked to a sufficient extent for national insurance contributions to be paid in respect of them.

Mr. Skinner: That is just a few more than those on the dole. Does my right hon. Friend accept that there are four good Socialist reasons for introducing retirement at 60 years of age for all? Does he not agree that those are, first, equality with women; second, that many professional and salaried classes already retire at 60; third, that it costs £72 million a week to pay for unemployment benefit and all the related matters affecting those on the dole; and, fourth, that in relation to many industrial countries, especially those in the Common Market, a little harmonisation in this direction would not be a bad thing?

Mr. Orme: I accept what my hon. Friend says about the Socialist reasons for moving towards this target. The Government do not object to moving towards this target. What prevents us from doing so at present is the cost. I think that my hon. Friend knows that the cost would be over £1,000 million, net, at present.

Sir John Hall: Does the Minister agree that the proportion of the population that is working, as compared with the rest, including those who are still at school and those who have retired, is diminishing and will continue to diminish? Therefore, does this not place increasing burdens on the working population, and is there not a case for increasing rather than decreasing the retirement age—especially of women, who live longer than men anyhow?

Mr. Orme: I would not like to join argument with the hon. Gentleman on the last point. However, on the first point, the ratio is reducing. It was 5:1. It is now 3½,:1. It would go well below 3:1 if the retirement age were reduced to 60. However, the Government stilt believe that in a modern industrial society we ought to be able to sustain people and provide decent pensions. That is what we are working towards.

Mr. Clemitson: On the last point, is it not true that over the next 10 years there will be about 1,600,000 more people in the working age range than there are now? However, to return to the point about employment among the over-sixties, is it not true that at the last count there were about 130,000 unemployed in the 60-plus age range? In order that we may make a reasonable assessment of the possibility of earlier retirement, so as to deal with this problem, would it not be possible to publish some of the estimates of gross and net cost, on which the Department has obviously been working?

Mr. Orme: I shall certainly see whether it is possible to provide fuller figures for the House, because I think that people are entitled to them, in view of the pressure.

Doctors (National Health Service)

Mr. Forman: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services whether he has


any plans to issue any ministerial guidelines to doctors regarding clinical freedom within the National Health Service.

The Minister of State, Department of Health and Social Security (Dr. David Owen): No, Sir.

Mr. Forman: Is the Minister aware that hon. Members on the Opposition Benches are very grateful for that answer, because we feel that any further erosion of clinical freedom would be the last straw for the medical profession, whose morale has already been seriously damaged by this Government's policy?

Dr. Owen: Clinical freedom is a matter that is precious to both sides of the House, and it is something that should not be narrowly interpreted. Doctors have to make decisions that have an impact on their patients.

Mr. Christopher Price: Does the Minister agree that clinical freedom has to be considered in relation to the professional freedom of other professions within the National Health Service? The real problem is to persuade the various professions in the service to work together in a multi-disciplinary approach rather than to insist on their own freedom being more important than that of others.

Dr. Owen: No profession, be it medicine, law or teaching, can isolate itself from the community that it serves.

Dr. Vaughan: Does the Minister agree that fear of a loss of clinical freedom is the reason for doctors leaving the country? In view of the figures published in the Daily Mail, showing that more than 1,000 doctors left this country last year, what action does he propose to take?

Dr. Owen: The reasons why people emigrate are multifarious. No matter what anybody says, no doctor is motivated into leaving this country by the threat to clinical freedom. That is a canard that was put around in 1946, when the National Health Service Act was introduced. No one believes that any of these claims were substantiated in the light of history.

Mr. Fernyhough: In view of the substance of this question, can the Minister say whether any full-time consultants and doctors employed in looking after our

Service men have made any complaints that they are in any way inhibited in terms of clinical freedom?

Dr. Owen: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that question. For two years I was responsible for the Naval Medical Service, and I found there that there was no threat to clinical freedom, and no anxiety on the part of its members about being full-time servants of the Crown.

Supplementary Benefits

Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will make a statement on the administration of supplementary benefits.

Mr. Ennals: My hon. Friend will be pleased to know that the Supplementary Benefits Commission's first annual report, in which a great many features of the supplementary benefits scheme and its administration will be dealt with, is due to be published in the early autumn.

Mr. Bennett: Does the Secretary of State agree that the Government's first priority should be to raise pensions and child benefit so that far fewer people need to rely on supplementary benefit? The Government should ensure that any expenditure on supplementary benefit goes towards helping people, rather than paying administrative costs. The present system is far too expensive in relation to administrative costs.

Mr. Ennals: Of course, I agree. It is Government policy to handle pensions and benefits in a way which will make people less and less dependent on means-tested benefits. The extent to which we can do that is governed by public expenditure limitations.
We are always looking into the question of administrative costs. Of course, if one has a scheme that is attuned to the particular needs of individuals, inevitably it is heavy on manpower. The more we do to cut down on manpower, the less we are able to give personal service to people with particular needs.

Mr. Boscawen: Will the Secretary of State ensure that supplementary benefits are not made available to those who come to this country voluntarily without visible means of support?

Mr. Ennals: I am not certain what the hon. Gentleman is talking about. The Supplementary Benefits Commission is very careful to ensure that the needs of people are met, regardless of their background. This policy is based entirely on needs, and we believe that that is how it should be.

Mr. Carter-Jones: On the subject of supplementary benefits, will the Secretary of State consider the danger of a cut-off point, which means that people who do not draw these benefits lose a substantial number of other benefits? Will he consider introducing real flexibility into the scheme to overcome this problem?

Mr. Ennals: As long as we have so many means-tested benefits, this will be a problem. It is constantly our task to reduce the extent to which people are dependent on means-tested benefits.

Mr. Peter Bottomley: Does the Minister agree that some families with children who are on supplementary benefits would find it much easier, and would be much better off, if food subsidies were withdrawn and the money saved was put towards making child interim benefit a disregard for supplementary benefit purposes?

Mr. Ennals: I would not necessarily reach that conclusion. We have to tackle the problem of food subsidies very carefully. We must realise that these subsidies help the generality of families—those who are in employment as well as those who are unemployed.

Electro-convulsive Therapy

Mr. Christopher Price: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will issue further guidance to National Health Service hospitals about the administration of electro-convulsive therapy to patients, in the light of the Inskip Report on St. Augustine's Hospital, Canterbury.

Mr. Ennals: The South East Thames Regional Health Authority has referred to me the report's valuable discussion of the use of this treatment and of various considerations relating to the patient's consent, and my Department is considering the policy issues raised. Meanwhile, I have asked that copies of the report

be sent to all health authorities and districts in England.

Mr. Price: Will my right hon. Friend read item 67 in the report, which refers to a case in which an elderly female was carried against her will, and without being examined by her doctor, into electroconvulsive therapy, and died a few days' later? This sort of incident is an absolute scandal to the National Health Service. When is the Minister going to take up his predecessor's promise to visit St. Augustine's Hospital?

Mr. Ennals: I agree that there are some very disturbing elements in the report, and item 67 is one of them. It is important to consider the question of consent. An inter-departmental review on the Mental Health Act 1959 is going on at present, and this is one of the issues that is under consideration. I am going to St. Augustine's Hospital tomorrow.

Mr. Patrick Jenkin: Is not the real message of the Inskip Report on St. Augustine's the absence of any overall and effective medical control of patients? Should not the Secretary of State devote maximum attention to this point?

Mr. Ennals: I must refrain from comments relating to St. Augustine's, because I am visiting there tomorrow. I may have comments to make after my visit.

Mr. Crouch: Will the Secretary of State not rely merely on the Inskip Report on St. Augustine's—which, incidentally, is in my constituency—but consider also the study to be made by the 13 regions of the country on this sort of problem? I urge him to take a wider view of electroconvulsive therapy, based on a study taken over the whole country.

Mr. Ennals: As far as ECT is concerned, the Inskip Report said:
It is probably the most effective treatment for moderate or severe depressive illness, and is still one of the most effective methods of treating many forms of schizophrenia".
but those using it must
consider whether the expected benefits out weigh the risks and disadvantages.
I shall, of course, consider all the points of view on this subject. I should add that when I was a Member of Parliament for Dover I was very much aware of the benefits obtained from the services of St. Augustine's Hospital.

General Practitioners (Pay)

Mr. Watkinson: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will initiate a review of the way in which general practitioners are paid.

Dr. Owen: Particular aspects of the remuneration of general practitioners come under review as part of the regular discussions between the Department and the profession. This continuing examination has not disclosed a need for a more fundamental review.

Mr. Watkinson: Is the Minister aware that there is a small number of unscrupulous doctors who con the Health Service by taking on assistants and receiving full pay from the family practitioner committees, while paying less than the full rate for the job? Will the Minister stamp out this abuse by asking doctors to declare their income from medical sources to the family practitioner committees?

Dr. Owen: Financial arrangements settled between partners or between a principal and his assistant are matters for the doctors themselves, not for me. I shall look into my hon. Friend's suggestion, however.

Mr. Patrick Jenkin: Will the Minister take another look at the grievance of many practitioners, which is that if they employ their wives as secretaries or receptionists they are not allowed to claim any practice expenses? Since Members of Parliament are entitled to claim a secretarial allowance if they employ their wives as secretaries, why should not the same arrangements apply to doctors?

Dr. Owen: Successive Governments have taken the line that it is difficult to draw a clear distinction between a wife being employed on duties for which the salaries are reimbursed for unrelated staff by the family practitioner committees and the normal functions that wives undertake, whether for Members of Parliament or for doctors. This is a difficult distinction to draw, and because I felt increasing concern about it I asked the negotiating bodies to look at it again, with a view to producing a system that is fair to both sides. Discussions have already commenced on that. I share the right hon. Gentleman's unease, particularly in view of the precedent that he mentioned.

Mr. Pavitt: Since general practitioner remuneration rests upon the Spens Reports and the arrangements made by Mr. Kenneth Robinson in a former Labour Government, and since the system is altogether antiquated, will my hon. Friend offer an alternative to the GPs with a more rational pay scale, probably on the basis of a salaried service?

Dr. Owen: That issue has often been discussed in the House. There are powers for the Minister to introduce such a scheme if a strong demand were to exist for it, but there never has been a strong demand from GPs for a salaried service.

Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act

Mr. Moonman: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will seek to discover how many local authorities have suspended implementation of Section 1 of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970; and if he will now make a statement.

The Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security (Mr. Alfred Morris): I have no evidence that any local authority has suspended implementation of Section 1 of the Act. The annual returns show that all authorities in England have been increasing the numbers registered, and my officials are in constant touch with authorities in relation to all matters affecting the personal social services. I shall have my hon. Friend's suggestion in mind when I review the returns for 1975–76.

Mr. Moonman: Will my hon. Friend confirm that it applies to the mentally sick? Is it not something of a scandal that we have been waiting for the Doctor Brown report, which has prompted very little initiative from the Government and local authorities? Should not this have been taken up?

Mr. Morris: My hon. Friend has a distinguished record of service to the mentally handicapped. Where appropriate, the Act applies to the mentally handicapped and the mentally ill as much as it applies to the physically handicapped and the physically ill.
My Department is considering the first draft of the Dr. Malcolm Brown report which was received earlier this month. It


deals with administrative action taken by local authorities in 1971–72 to inform themselves of the number of disabled people. I intend to lay a copy of the report in the Library at the earliest possible date.

Mrs. Chalker: Is the Minister aware of the Outset organisation's surveys of compliance with Part I of the Act? Is it not sensible to proceed with the services under Part I now, so that in better economic times we may put Part II into practice?

Mr. Morris: I am very much aware of the Outset surveys. I pay the warmest possible tribute to Nicholas Blake and his colleagues in that organisation. We must do all we can to identify all severely handicapped people. I could give the figures of severely disabled people who have already been identified. Enormous progress has been made recently.

Mr. Kilroy-Silk: Is my hon. Friend aware that in its 1976–77 budget the Knowsley Council, in my area, has made no provision for Section 2 of the Act for aids and adaptions for disabled and handicapped people? Does he take the same serious and shocked view that I do of this? Will he take default powers, to ensure that the local authority complies with the law?

Mr. Morris: There is another Question about Section 2 of the Act on the Order Paper. I am prepared to give urgent consideration to the point raised by my hon. Friend.

Mrs. Bain: Will the Minister bear in mind that even where people have already been identified by local authorities, many of them are affected by cutbacks in public expenditure, which have resulted in cut-backs in essential lifeline services, such as home helps?

Mr. Morris: The current economic situation is extremely difficult for local authorities. I am doing my best to emphasise that priority should be given to the claims of disabled people. I hope that all hon. Members will do what they can in their localities to emphasise the needs of the disabled.

Child Benefit

Mrs. Castle: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will announce the rate at which child benefit will be introduced next year.

Mr. Ennals: I shall be made a statement later this afternoon.

Mrs. Castle: Is my right hon. Friend aware that I find that reply rather ominous and that I shall be trying to catch your eye, Mr. Speaker, when my right hon. Friend makes his statement?

Mr. Ennals: I cannot understand why my right hon. Friend finds the prospect of a statement ominous. If there were to be the introduction of the scheme of which the House approved there would clearly have to be a statement to the House, and it would be surprising if I were not the Secretary of State to do it.

Mr. Patrick Jenkin: Since the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) failed for so long to give the figures for child benefit, why should she find it ominous when the Secretary of State proposes to do so?

Disabled Persons (Telephones)

Mr. Ioan Evans: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services whether he is satisfied with the methods adopted by local authorities in providing telephones for the disabled.

Mr. Alfred Morris: I understand that some authorities use criteria drawn up by the former local authority associations. These may be helpful to authorities in a general way, but I have been making it clear that they do not, of course, relieve any authority of the duty to consider the particular needs of the individual in each case. I am advised that the legal position is that, if an authority is satisfied in any case of the need for a telephone under Section 2 of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act, it is required to make arrangements accordingly.

Mr. Evans: Does my hon. Friend realise that while there is appreciation of what the Government have done for the disabled, there is growing concern about inconsistency in the provision of tele


phones, which seems to depend upon where people live and when they apply? Will he consider applying national criteria, because there is a serious sense of grievance on the part of people who do not get telephones when they see them supplied to others with a lesser degree of disability?

Mr. Morris: One of the difficulties is that it is widely thought that there are national criteria. The criteria approved by the former local authority associations were issued in the form of guidelines. They had no statutory force. I am well aware of the importance of my hon. Friend's point and will actively consider what he has said.

Mr. Marten: The Minister said that local authorities should "make arrangements accordingly". Does he mean that they should do so regardless of whether the resources are available? As cosponsor of the Bill, will the Minister, I should like to be clear on that point.

Mr. Morris: Local authorities have laid upon them the duty to consider the need of an individual and, if satisfied about it, to make provision accordingly, within a reasonable period. That means that if the local authority recognises and accepts the need in any particular case it must meet that need. That is the legal advice available to me. I have mentioned that there are problems about resources. The hon. Member has asked me a direct question. I can only repeat the advice available to me.

Community Care

Mr. Luce: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services what action he is taking to improve the community care services.

Mr. Michael Roberts: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services what steps he is taking to encourage the care of the elderly, disabled and other handicapped people by their families.

Mr. Ennals: Our recent consultative document "Priorities for Health and Personal Social Services in England" emphasises the importance of developing community services—including those provided by voluntary organisations—to help elderly and handicapped people, and others in need, to live in the community

and with their families to the maximum extent possible. We propose a deliberate and challenging policy of giving these services priority over the acute hospital services in the allocation of the limited resources available for growth.

Mr. Luce: I thank the Minister for that reply. Does he agree that at a time when public expenditure must be pruned ruthlessly, effective community care services would do much to save expenditure by their greater use of voluntary effort and by saving more people from going into institutions? Will he therefore give the highest possible priority to improving community care services?

Mr. Ennals: I assure the hon. Member that we shall do that, within the restraints on public expenditure. Personal social services are receiving a higher share at a time when there is nil growth in local government expenditure. That shows the priority given to them. We need to improve community care as much as we can, and we should use effectively the resources of voluntary organisations as well as statutory bodies. Much can be done by voluntary organisations in the community, and local authorities are working more closely with them to establish a basis for a partnership.

Mr. Carter-Jones: Does my right hon. Friend agree that if he is to provide greater community care, he will have to ensure that technical aids are made more readily available, because only then can dependants look after relatives who are disabled, elderly or suffering?

Mr. Ennals: I agree with my hon. Friend, who has done a tremendous amount of work in this area. The Government have also done a tremendous amount of work, and will continue to do so. It is vital that modern equipment should be available to help handicapped and disabled people to live in their own homes.

Mr. Roberts: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider extending the invalid care allowance to married women?

Mr. Ennals: I cannot accept any extension of the allowance at the moment. It begins in July, and 10,000 applications have been received. The allowance will help men and single women who are prevented from working by the need to


care for severely disabled relatives who are receiving an attendance allowance. As the new allowance has only just been introduced, it is too early to contemplate an extension, though we should like to consider that when conditions permit.

Mr. Pavitt: Does my right hon. Friend not agree that it was an absolute disaster to separate social services from the NHS and community care? Does he not further agree that in present economic circumstances it would also be disastrous if the big spenders—the hospitals—were able to make a greater claim on resources when community care should have the priority that he is recommending?

Mr. Ennals: I agree that it is vital that we take every possible step to ensure effective co-operation between health authorities and local authorities. That is one of the reasons why we have put forward proposals to provide funds for joint financing, particularly in community care. Projects could be sponsored and financed jointly by health authorities and local authorities. That would be one way of ensuring the sort of co-operation that my hon. Friend and I both wish to see.

Mrs. Chalker: Will the Secretary of State consider issuing guidelines to local authorities so that they do not cut off grants to local organisations which are trying hard to work in partnership in order to cut the costs of local authority care?

Mr. Ennals: I shall certainly look into that question and discuss it with my colleagues, though I cannot give any commitment at this stage.

Employment Incentives

Mr. Cope: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services what steps he is taking to ensure that it pays to work.

Mr. Deakins: The question of financial incentives to work is a highly complex one, involving wage levels, taxation, social security benefits and other benefits, such as rent and rate rebates. We are keeping this question under review.

Mr. Cope: Are this scroungers' Government so insulated from the anger of people who do a good day's work that they do not realise that such waffle and such policies make it more difficult to have compassion in a geniune case?

Mr. Deakins: The hon. Gentleman should recognise that the vast majority of unemployed people in this country want to work. It is a matter of much greater public concern that we should be losing the productive capacity of the large number of people who are unemployed and who want to work. That is what should be troubling the hon. Gentleman.

Later—

Mr. Cryer: On a point of order Mr. Speaker. During Question Time one Opposition Member made a claim about scroungers on social security. May I ask you to rule whether such Members should declare their interests, so that, when they are receiving £5,750 a year at the taxpayers' expense and scrounging fees from directorships and/or parliamentary adviserships, people outside—

Mr. Speaker: Order. It is quite clear that that is not a point of order. It is a debating point.

Oral Answers to Questions — SCOTTISH TUC

Mr. Canavan: asked the Prime Minister when he next plans to meet the STUC.

The Prime Minister (Mr. James Callaghan): I hope to meet the STUC later this summer.

Mr. Canavan: Will my right hon. Friend discuss with the STUC the reasons behind the local authority workers' strike in the Cumbernauld-Kilsyth district? Bearing in mind that the SNP-controlled council is the only local authority in the whole of Scotland which is trying to force workers to accept a £6 wage cut and is trying to pass the buck to the Labour Government, does my right hon. Friend agree that this is typical of the dishonest and shabby treatment that the Scottish trade union movement would receive at the hands of the SNP under its kind of separate Scotland?

The Prime Minister: I understand that the SNP in the Cumbernauld-Kilsyth district takes the view that while it is prevented by the pay policy from giving increases, it is entitled to make reductions. If it treats Scottish affairs with that degree of sensitivity, it will have a lot more people in Scotland out on strike. I understand that the union is prepared to negotiate and that the district council is ready


to negotiate on this general question. I hope that the issue can be settled very quickly. I have no doubt that the people of Scotland will note the situation to which my hon. Friend has called attention.

Mr. David Steel: When he meets the STUC, will the Prime Minister discuss with its members the question of unemployment among newly-qualified schoolteachers? Is he aware that while the whole House regards any unemployment as regrettable, there is particular repugnance at unemployment among young people who may have spent up to three years training at public expense, only to find they have no jobs to go to?

The Prime Minister: We should be concerned about unemployment among all young people—teachers and everybody else. Unemployment among teachers is extremely low compared with the general figures. I hope that young school teachers will endeavour to find other suitable occupations, because, as the House knows, an advisory council on supply and training is looking into these matters and it seems to be recommending that because of demographic changes and the smaller number of children likely to be passing through our schools we shall not need such a large supply of teachers in future.

Mr. Dempsey: Is my right hon. Friend aware that if he were discussing this matter with the STUC, its members would point out that by reducing classes to 30, which is Labour Party policy, by employing more teachers for remedial purposes, and by accepting the principle approved by teachers in recent contract service agreements, of 10 per cent. extra for correction time, it would be possible to prevent virtually any newly-qualified teachers from going on the dole in August?

The Prime Minister: I dare say that is true, but my hon. Friend did not finish his comments by adding that these measures would cost a great deal of extra money. I do not have the Scottish figures, but the figures for England and Wales show that the pupil-teacher ratio in January this year was 23·8 in primary schools and 17 in secondary schools. This is a remarkable improvement. We can obviously go on improving ratios all the time, but we have to take into account the cost to the public purse.

Mr. Crawford: I am shocked that the Prime Minister does not have the Scottish statistics. When he meets the STUC will he tell it that he is utterly ashamed to be heading a Government who campaigned on the slogan "Back to Work With Labour", and who are now presiding over some of the highest unemployment levels in Scotland since before the war?

The Prime Minister: In that case I hope to have the support of the hon. Gentleman, and of those who are cheering on the Opposition Benches, for the Government's anti-inflation policy. It is undoubtedly true—I hope that the hon. Gentleman will explain this to his constituents—that, when inflation gets out of control, it leads to unemployment. That is why I wonder why Opposition spokesmen, such as the hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine), say that the trade unions should be ashamed of recommending the pay deal to their followers.

Mr. Younger: When the Prime Minister sees the STUC, will he remind it that the public spending spree that the Govvernment set in train in 1974 has now made thousands of its members unemployed?

The Prime Minister: I do not mind a certain amount of rewriting of history, but I do not think the hon. Gentleman can get away with that. The spending spree started under Lord Barber and the Government of which most of the Opposition Front Bench were members. That was when inflation took off. The penitence expressed by some Conservative Members about the way in which they allowed the money supply to get out of hand should be continued through to its logical conclusion. It was they who fomented the tremendous inflation that has taken place. It is they who are now divided in their approach to the remedies. All we know is that the Leader of the Opposition takes the view that public expenditure should be cut immediately, and cutting expenditure immediately would, of course, lead to a much larger amount of unemployment, which Conservative hon. Members deplored.

Mr. Kilroy-Silk: What evidence does my right hon. Friend have that resources released by punitive cuts in public expenditure would go to socially useful investment or job creation?

The Prime Minister: There is no evidence to that effect. The Government have not cut public expenditure this year. If my hon. Friend would listen to the replies that I have made over some weeks, he would know—and he should know by now—that what we are doing is levelling off the increase in public expenditure over the next three years, not cutting it.

Mr. Prior: How does the Prime Minister reconcile what he has just said to my hon. Friend the Member for Ayr (Mr. Younger) with the fact that he fought the October 1974 election on the basis that unemployment was beginning to fall and that inflation was under control?

The Prime Minister: It was the full extent of Lord Barber's depredations, under which the money supply increased by about 23 per cent.—which I have always understood from at least the right hon. and learned Member for Surrey, East (Sir G. Howe) is the cause of our troubles, which led to the great inflation of 1974—[Interruption.] Conservative Members cannot disguise their difficulties by shouting at me. They had better make up their minds whether they are monetarists or pseudo-monetarists, whether they believe that the expansion of the money supply caused inflation, or whether they do not. When they have resolved those difficulties I shall be more prepared to listen to their shoutings.

Oral Answers to Questions — ECONOMIC AFFAIRS (CHANCELLOR'S SPEECH)

Mr. George Gardiner: asked the Prime Minister whether the public speech by the Chancellor of the Exchequer on economic prospects at Scarborough on 10th May represents Government policy.

Mr. Radice: asked the Prime Minister whether the public speech on the economy at Scarborough made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer to the Association of Professional, Executive and Clerical Staff on 10th May represents Government policy.

Mr. Tim Renton: asked the Prime Minister whether the public speech on economic policy by the Chancellor of the Exchequer at Scarborough on 10th May represents Government policy.

Mr. Gow: asked the Prime Minister whether the public speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer at Scarborough on economic affairs on 10th May 1976 represents Government policy.

The Prime Minister: Yes. My right hon. Friend's speech at Scarborough, has my full support, especially in stressing the importance to this country of the TUC General Council's agreement to recommend a further voluntary extension of incomes policy to a special TUC conference next month. As my right hon. Friend pointed out in his speech, if this recommendation is accepted and endorsed by the conference—as I believe it will be—it will greatly strengthen our competitive position in world markets; and it will generate fresh confidence leading to much needed new investment and to more jobs. It is for these reasons that my right hon. Friend's speech has my full support.

Mr. Gardiner: The right hon. Gentleman will have also notice that in his speech the Chancellor hoped for an economical miracle. As miracles do not happen very often, what are the Government going to do to restore some overseas confidence in the pound before action is dictated to them as a condition for a further IMF loan?

The Prime Minister: My right hon. Friend pointed out that miracle have happened in other countries and that one could certainly happen here. [Interruption.] But that will not happen as long as the Opposition remain so totally divided on the remedies that they would put before the country if they were to have the opportunity of returning to power. I must agree that they have not done much to impress themselves upon the country so far. As long as these divisions continue between them on their economic and financial policies, they are not likely to get much satisfaction—[Interruption.] If I am asked a very important question about the speech at Scarborough, I must give it the attention that it obviously deserves, and I intend to do so. As regards sterling—[Interruption.] I cannot make myself heard, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The Prime Minister is coming to the end of this Answer.

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir. I was saying that sterling is a great national asset and should not be made—I hope that the hon. Gentleman does not intend to make it so—a party football. It is our judgment—I believe it is the judgment of central bankers generally—that sterling at present is under-valued. There would be no point therefore, in indulging in punitive measures that could have no possible impact upon the level of competitiveness of our exports.

Mr. Radice: Doos my right hon. Friend agree that it would be better if the Opposition acknowledged that our share of world trade has increased for only the second time in 20 years, and that we now have a real prospect of export-led growth? Does he further agree that a contribution from them on those lines would be fare more constructive than the discordant carpings of recent weeks, which have undoubtedly played a part in the weakening of sterling?

The Prime Minister: Yes, but I do not expect to hear any words of commendation from the Conservative Party about the fact that our share in the level of world trade increased last year for only the second time in 20 years. In fact, exports are doing well again this year. I hope that the Opposition will soon be able to resolve their economic difficulties and tell us whether they believe in exports.

Mr. Tim Renton: Is the Prime Minister just going to give us a repeat performance of 1964 and 1965 on sterling, is he just going to shake at the knees while the rate falls, or will he have the guts to impose some public expenditure cuts?

The Prime Minister: Further public expenditure cuts now would mean more unemployment. They would not improve our industrial base; they would lead to immediate unemployment. It is the general view of most people, except for the unpatriotic members of the Opposition—[Interruption.] There is no reason to talk sterling down when it is the general view that at present it is competitive with currencies of other countries.

Mr. Heffer: Given that the TUC Liaison Committee's statement yesterday

indicated that the TUC is anxious for a wealth tax to be brought in at the earliest possible moment. and calls for selective import controls plus a series of other demands, will my right hon. Friend indicate whether this will be the Government's policy in the near future? Will they carry out those demands as the other side of the acceptance of the wages policy by the trade unions?

The Prime Minister: As my hon Friend knows, the manifesto has been carried out to a remarkable degree, as is acknowledged by the Trades Union Congress and, indeed, by all fair-minded people in this country. A number of issues are still under discussion and will continue to be under discussion with the TUC. The question of selective import controls is one with which we have dealt on a number of occasions, and the Government's approach to it has been made clear by me. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has already announced in the House that he is considering a wealth tax, and he will, of course, announce his conclusions.

Mr. Gow: Will the Prime Minister explain to the Chancellor of the Exchequer that real reason for the underlying fall in the external value of the pound is the Government's borrowing requirement and that, as long as he goes on borrowing £23,000 a minute, the decline in sterling will go on?

The Prime Minister: No, Sir; that is too simplistic a view. There is no one factor here. Indeed, the markets that have dictated the movements of the rate in either direction have been extremely thin. There is little doubt but that this year the Chancellor will be able to finance the borrowing requirement, although I think that we have all indicated that a level of this kind will come into collision with the demands of industry for investment during the course of 1977. That is the time for which we must prepare.

Mr. Whitelaw: Is the Prime Minister aware that the Opposition deeply resent his accusations of unpatriotic conduct—[Interruption.]—particularly when they come from a party which behaved in the way that the right hon. Gentleman and many of his right hon. and hon. Friends behaved when they were in Opposition?
Secondly, would the Prime Minister regard it as an economic miracle if, by the end of 1977, the rate of inflation were brought back to what the Chancellor said it was at the time of the October 1974 election—namely, 8·4 per cent.?

The Prime Minister: rose—

Hon. Members: Answer.

The Prime Minister: I have not been able to get a word in yet. I thought that the right hon. Gentleman was getting up to tell me that he shared the view that sterling was not over-valued. [HON. MEMBERS: "Answer."] That would have been the best answer to accusations of lack of patriotism.
I think that there is little doubt that, if the TUC's recommendation goes through and is accepted by the unions, by the end of 1977 the rate of inflation will put us in line with our major competitors, such as the United States, Germany and France. [HON. MEMBERS: "8·4 per cent."] It may be round about that. Considering the way in which the hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine) is now encouraging and inciting trade unionists to break the Pay Code, that would indeed be remarkable.

Later—

Sir David Renton: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I rise to ask for your ruling on the question whether it is in order for the Prime Minister to accuse other Members of this House of being unpatriotic. We have various well and long established rules which maintain the dignity of the House, the principle of which is that we treat each other as being honourable or right hon. Members. Is it not a breach of that tradition and of those rules for the Prime Minister to accuse other Members of being unpatriotic? As the accusation was aimed at Members of the Conservative Party, would it not be right for me to add that Members of this party have at least as good a record of patriotic service to their country as the Members of any other party?

Mr. Speaker: First, I always strongly deprecate terms of abuse about Members on either side of the House. Secondly, a term of abuse, whilst deprecated, if not directed at an individual Member—[Interruption.] I did not understand it to be directed at any one individual. It

was a group statement. I cannot rule it out of order, but I do not like it.

The Prime Minister: I accept what you, Mr. Speaker, have said about the undesirability of accusing individual Members of lack of patriotism, or, indeed, of individual Members calling individual citizens scroungers. Nevertheless, I think that it is time that the Conservative Party stopped talking sterling down at every Question Time when I answer Questions.

Mr. Whitelaw: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. Surely the Prime Minister will accept that all Members of this House should have the best interests of this country at heart. I believe that over a long period of time many of us have shown that to be the case. Whatever happens to be for the good of this country, I shall always applaud. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will recognise that is said on behalf of the whole of the Conservative Party.

The Prime Minister: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. I recognise that, but I think that the right hon. Gentleman could put the seal on it by telling us that he shares our general view that sterling is not at the moment over-valued.

Oral Answers to Questions — PUBLIC LENDING RIGHT BILL [Lords]

Mr. Ridley: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. The first item at the commencement of public business is:
That the Public Lending Right Bill [Lords] be referred to a Second Reading Committee.
Can you tell me whether that is a misprint or a joke?

Mr. Speaker: If the hon. Gentleman will wait until we get there, he will find out.

DEVOLUTION TO SCOTLAND AND WALES

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Michael Foot): I wish to tell the House of decisions the Government have taken to carry forward our policy on devolution to Scotland and Wales.
We are determined to introduce legislation affecting both Scotland and Wales


at the beginning of the next Session, and to ask Parliament to pass it in that Session. The announcement I made to the House on 14th April about starting to incur commitments on accommodation for the two Assemblies was a sign of our resolve.
As my predecessor promised, we have considered the possibility of having separate Bills for Scotland and Wales. We have decided to keep to a single combined Bill. Separate Bills would demand too much parliamentary time for both to pass in a single Session.
We have decided against holding a referendum on our devolution proposals. There have been wide opportunities, before and since the last General Election, for public discussion of them.
We have decided not to publish a "draft" Bill in the present Session, since this would divert effort for the preparation of the Bill for next Session.
I turn now to the substance of our devolution proposals. I should like to inform the House of certain decisions we have reached, in the light of comments on our White Paper, about the Development Agencies and the constitutional roles of the Secretaries of State.
We have decided that responsibility for all operations of the Scottish and Welsh Development Agencies and for all appointments to them should be transferred to the devolved administrations. This includes responsibility for financing the Agencies from the resources controlled by the devolved administrations. To ensure that there can be no unfair competition with other parts of the United Kingdom, the industrial investmen operations of the Agencies will be subject to guidelines laid down by the Government from time to time. With this qualification, they will be wholly the responsibility of the devolved administrations. They will also retain their existing powers to act under the direction of the Secretary of State in selective industrial assistance cases under Section 7 of the Industry Act 1972.
I turn next to the constitutional rôles of the Secretaries of State, particularly in Scotland. In the light of the views expressed in Parliament and elsewhere we have made the following decisions.
Firstly, while our consideration of the detailed arrangements for examination of the vires of Scottish Assembly primary legislation is not complete, we have decided that if there is doubt at the pre-assent stage about the vires of an Assembly Bill, the issue will be resolved on a reference to a judicial body, most probably the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. It follows that the Government will not have the power to reject Assembly Bills on vires grounds.
Secondly, while the formal act of appointment of the Scottish Executive will rest with the Secretary of State he will, in respect of the appointment of the Chief Executive, act on the advice of the Assembly and, in respect of other Executive Members, on the advice of the Chief Executive. Assistants to the Executive will be appointed by the Chief Executive.
Thirdly, the Secretary of State will have no rôle in fixing the maximum size of the Scottish Executive or the pay of its Members. These matters will be left to the Assembly, as will comparable ones in Wales.
We have not completed our detailed consideration of United Kingdom reserve powers other than Parliament's inherent power to legislate. We shall, however, make a major change in this field. Any general reserve powers, whatever their precise form and mechanisms, will be limited to situations where their use is necessary to prevent unacceptable repercussions on matters for which the United Kingdom Government will remain responsible. We have never envisaged using such powers simply because we might politically dislike what was being done, and the change we are making puts this beyond doubt. I reaffirm also that whatever the form of any general powers, they will, as the White Paper made clear, be subject to the direct and specific control of Parliament and not available simply at the hand of the Government.
The Secretaries of State for Scotland and for Wales will remain, in accordance with the Government's commitments, members of the Cabinet, and will play their full part in the development of United Kingdom policies.
Decisions on a number of further issues remain to be reached. I shall make a further report to the House before the Summer Recess.
The Government have listened carefully to the national debate on devolution and we have improved our schemes in the light of it. We now move forward, as we promised, from the phase of discussion to the phase of legislation and fulfilment. This is what Scotland and Wales had a right to expect. The good faith of the United Kingdom Parliament can strengthen and enhance the Union.

Mr. Whitelaw: Will the right hon. Gentleman appreciate that as the whole idea of a dummy Bill was a pretty dubious proposal in the first instance, he has had to find a curious and not very subtle reason for dropping it?
Secondly, does he appreciate that many people will regard the decision to have a single Bill for Scotland and Wales as extremely wrong? Does he not agree that the problems of Scotland and Wales are very different and that the solutions proposed by the Government are also substantially different. Therefore, in these circumstances what is the sense of having a single Bill? Does not the right hon. Gentleman agree that if he had not been in his present position on the Government Front Bench but had, instead, still been a Member of the Back Benches, he would have been strongly against this proposal? [HON. MEMBERS: "Why?"] Because the problems of Scotland and Wales are very different and therefore should be treated differently in this House, as I have heard the Leader of the House argue on many occasions in the past.
Will the right hon. Gentleman undertake to give some estimate of the extra financial burdens placed on the people of Scotland and Wales by putting forward additional proposals? What resources are the Assemblies and Executives to use to finance the development authorities? Does he not agree that as the extra burdens are to be placed on the people of Scotland and Wales, it is important that we should know what these resources are likely to be?
Lastly, will the right hon. Gentleman ensure that there is an opportunity to debate these matters before the Summer Recess, because considerable issues arise for discussion before a Bill is presented?

Mr. Foot: Perhaps I may take the right hon. Gentleman's points in reverse order. We shall have to look into the possibility of a debate. I understand

that there may be a desire in the House for a debate and we shall examine what time is available. I take account of what the right hon. Gentleman said on that topic.
As for the financial aspects of the matter, the statement which I have made today does not in any way add to the financial burden or the financial implications of the proposals. We are dealing with the question of making the Scottish Development Agency and the Welsh Development Agency accountable to the Assemblies. That is an essential part of the matter, and it is a reasonable procedure.
The first point made by the right hon. Gentleman related to the dropping of the so-called dummy Bill. There seems to be an excellent reason for doing so. We are making good progress in the production of the real Bill, and I am sure that the sooner we can produce it to the House, the more gratified the right hon. Gentleman will be.
On the question of separate Bills for Scotland and Wales, I do not know why the right hon. Gentleman should suggest that I am in favour of a separate Bill for Wales. Devolution means that there can be different developments in Scotland, in Wales and in England as to the way in which affairs are conducted. That is one of the purposes of devolution. No doubt there will be different developments in Wales, and in Scotland in some respects, compared with developments in England, but the idea that we should not put through the whole Bill together seems to me to be extraordinary.
We all know that one reason for desiring separate Bills lies in preventing devolution for Wales taking place at all. As a long-term devolutionist who has been strongly in favour of devolution ever since publication of the Kilbrandon Report, I would strongly oppose holding up the Bill for Wales. Therefore, I believe that the two Bills should go forward together.

Mr. Mackintosh: I welcome my right hon. Friend's progress and his kind remarks about the veto and other aspects of the matter. In the course of the consultations which he and his colleagues are having in framing the final Bill—involving university devolution, the law, agriculture and fisheries and all the


matters which are still in dispute—will he talk to the STUC, Labour Members of Parliament and other people rather than talk only to those who represent the established interests and who are in charge of these situations? Does he not agree that what we need is a devolution Bill that is acceptable to the people of Scotland, not a measure that is merely acceptable to certain vested interests?

Mr. Foot: I assure my hon. Friend that I would much rather listen to and talk with the STUC than discuss these matters with what he describes as "vested interests"—because, for one thing, the former are much more interesting. However, I do not think anybody could suggest that we have not taken account of representations from the STUC. We certainly have done so. A most important conference took place in Scotland—and indeed a very important conference was held in Wales, too—at Troon some weeks ago at which the STUC was prominently represented. Its members made proposals in an effort to improve our plans. We have taken them fully into account, and I promise my hon. Friend that, just as we have listened to representations in the past months, so we shall listen to representations on the further proposals that we shall be announcing before the Summer Recess.

Mr. Powell: In view of the unreduced parliamentary representation which is to be secured to Scotland and Wales under the Bill, is not this legislation an appropriate vehicle for rectifying the under-representation of Northern Ireland in this House?

Mr. Foot: I note what the right hon. Gentleman says. But no decision has been made on that subject. I cannot do more than refer him to the White Paper on Northern Ireland—Command Paper No. 6387—which was produced by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland at the beginning of the year. Paragraph 13 deals with this matter, and I have nothing to add to it at the moment.

Mr. Kinnock: Is my right hon. Friend aware that however much he uses words about the wide opportunities that there will be for public discussion, that great debate, without a referendum at the end

of it, is like a horse race without a winning post and that all that the Government can rely upon is the mood at the moment in this place and in conferences, and not the mood at the moment or in the future amongst the people whom these proposals affect? Is he aware, further, that the developments which he now proposes on the White Paper constitute a substantial degree of separatism within the unity of the United Kingdom and that that must have profound implications for the representation of Scotland and Wales in this House?

Mr. Foot: I cannot accept what my hon. Friend says. There is not the slightest element of separatism in the proposals that we are making. Indeed, it is the successful adoption of these proposals which I believe is the best way of keeping the United Kingrom united. So I cannot accept that, even from my hon. Friend.
As for the way of testing public opinion, there were good tests, in Wales especially, on this subject both in February 1974 and in October 1974. I believe that inherently there would be great difficulties in putting any devolution proposals to the public in the form of a referendum.

Mr. Russell Johnston: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that we welcome the strengthening of the powers of the Assembly and the decision on the judicial review? Specifically on the Scottish and Welsh Development Agencies, does the decision mean that the allocation of money for the two agencies will now become part of the general block grant negotiation between the Assemblies and Parliament here at Westminster, or are they to be treated separately? Equally, is it fair to say that there is still a conflict between the power of the Assemblies to direct the respective agencies and the power of the Secretaries of State to direct them? Finally, does the right hon. Gentleman intend to make a further statement on what has happened to the White Paper on the English regions, to which many people expected him to refer today?

Mr. Foot: The discussions will be part of the general block grant discussions between the administrations and the central Government in Westminster.
I do not think that there will be the conflict which the hon. Gentleman describes in the operation of the agencies. There


will be guidelines laid down, as I said in my original statement, to protect the interests of the United Kingdom as a whole in this respect. Those guidelines will be quite clear. They will help to clarify the situation to everyone. They will also help to ensure that the Scottish Development Agency like the Welsh Development Agency, shall be properly accountable to the Assemblies which have been established.
On the third matter, concerning a special statement or document about devolution in England, we are still having consultations about the best way in which any proposals might be made on that account.

Mr. Heffer: Is my right hon. Friend aware that his statement today will be considered by some hon. Members as a further retreat in the face of nationalist pressures? Is he aware also that some of us will consider that the tail is now wagging the dog? Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that there are resolutions passed by other regional Labour Parties throughout the country criticising the Government's economic policy? Will the Government accept those resolutions? If not, why are they being selective over the question of devolution?
Will my right hon. Friend reconsider the possibility of a referendum in this country, as the people as a whole, including the English people, have a right to express their view on the fundamental constitutional change which is being proposed by the Government?

Mr. Foot: Of course, the people of England, like the people of Wales and Scotland, have every right to express their views. No doubt they will continue to express them, especially through their representatives in this House. I have never known my hon. Friend to be backward in expressing the views of his constituency in this House, and I am sure that he will continue to do so. I believe that this House is the best place to pass the final judgment on how we are to proceed with the devolution programme.
When my hon. Friend says that we have given way to nationalist pressure, I would not accept that in any sense.

Mr. Skinner: That is what it looks like.

Mr. Foot: My hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) says that that is what it looks like. He should read the representations which have been made to the Government by the STUC and by the General Council of the TUC in Britain as a whole, by the Labour Party in Scotland and by Labour Parties up and down the country. He will see that, far from giving way to nationalist pressure, if it is to be part of the accusation, we have accepted representations made overwhelmingly by trade unions north and south of the border.

Mr. Reid: Does the right hon. Gentleman appreciate that his statement will be seen as a small step forward which has been achieved only by sustained Scottish pressure? Will he admit that the voters of East Kilbride, Bo'ness and Bishopbriggs have done their work, at least in part? The Government having shifted their ground yet again, will the right hon. Gentleman admit also that no longer can there be any once and for all transfer of powers but that the transfer is a continuing and on-going process and that where that process stops will be decided only by the people of Scotland?
Finally, does not the right hon. Gentleman understand that his measures still fail to meet Scottish aspirations in four respects: first, the Assembly will have no immediate access to oil revenues; secondly, the Assembly is to have no powers to regenerate the Scottish economy or to end the cycle of deprivation; thirdly, once the Assembly is established, the regions are not to be abolished—

Mr. Speaker: Order. We are not debating this matter now. I hope to get in a few more questions to the Lord President. However, there is another major statement to come.

Mr. Foot: I can well understand that my statement does not satisfy the hon. Member for Clackmannan and East Stirlingshire (Mr. Reid) and some of his friends because he believes in separatism, and we repudiate separatism. Of course we shall not satisfy him. But, as I have said, when we published our White Paper on the subject we said that we would have consultations on it. The consultations and the representations of which we have


taken most account are those wishing to see a proper democratic decentralisation of power in this country combined with the maintenance of the United Kingdom. That, of course, does not appeal to the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Sillars: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the Scottish Development Agency is the only industrial function to be transferred to the Assembly? Is he aware how far short that falls of the Labour Party's statement in October 1974 which promised extensive trade and industry powers to a Scottish Assembly? Will my right hon. Friend have another look at the guidelines for the Scottish Development Agency residing at Westminster because, if this continued, it would only be a Scottish industrial puppet controlled by a Westminster string?

Mr. Foot: I repudiate entirely the suggestion that the Scottish Development Agency, or the Welsh Development Agency, under the proposals we have made, will be the puppet of central Government in any sense whatsoever. Guidelines are to be there in order to protect the legitimate interests of the United Kingdom as a whole, but the Scottish Development Agency will be accountable to the Assembly. My hon. Friend says that this is not what the people in Scotland were asking for. It is certainly what they were asking for at Troon. I think that the Troon conference was much more representative than anybody my hon. Friend can muster to bring forward his ideas.

Mr. Younger: After the changes announced by the Leader of the House, will there by any worthwhile role at all for the Secretaries of State for Scotland and Wales or, for that matter, for the elected Members of Parliament of Scotland and Wales? If so, what is it?

Mr. Foot: I have said in my statement, and it is in the original White Paper, that the Secretaries of State will play a prominent part, as they do now, in the shaping of United Kingdom policy as a whole. Precisely because we are opposed to separatism, there must be Scottish and Welsh representation both in this House and in the Government. If we were to follow the course which

appears to be implicit in the hon. Gentleman's question we should indeed be heading for separatism, and we are determined not to follow that course.

Mr. Gwynfor Evans: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that his statement fails to remove the blatant injustice which the Government propose to put upon Wales by denying it equality of status with Scotland? There is a great need for powers to deal with the social and economic problems in Wales, such as unemployment, depopulation and emigration. Centralised Governments over generations have failed to solve these problems. Is he further aware that we also need powers to be able to put our infrastructure in order and to develop, design and execute our own development plans?

Mr. Foot: I think the proposal the hon. Gentleman has made about the responsibility and the accountability of the Welsh Development Agency will assist in enabling the Welsh Assembly to play its part in the economic affairs of the Principality. But over and above that, one of the major demands from Wales has been that we should make many of these nominated bodies democratically responsible. That, too, is comprised in our proposals. I believe that the people of Wales will welcome what we have proposed. I believe that they have already shown that this is the way in which they hope that we shall proceed. We have responded to their representations as well.

Mr. William Ross: Is my right hon. Friend aware that his statement is welcome in Scotland? It has shown that the Government have been constructively responsive to the criticisms which have been made of the White Paper in this House as well as in discussions in Scotland. May I take it that he will proceed to look further at some of the points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Berwick and East Lothian (Mr. Mackintosh) about the law in Scotland in particular?
We welcome the decision to drop the draft Bill and to proceed with the final Bill. However, bearing in mind the complexity of the decisions he still has to make, may I urge on my right hon. Friend that it is better to get the thing right than to do it quickly and get it wrong?


Will he give an answer to the right hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Mr. Whitelaw) about a debate? It will be a very good thing because many of us are dying to hear just exactly what the riotous Tory Party—a reasonable description, to judge from its conference—will say about the matter.

Mr. Foot: I am most grateful to my right hon. Friend for every word he has uttered, particularly his last suggestion. The temptation is so overwhelming that I am sure we shall have to agree to a debate for this purpose, if for no other. I am sure that there are other good reasons as well.
I can give my right hon. Friend the undertaking that, in preparing the further statement on a series of important questions which have still to be settled, some of which were enumerated by my hon. Friend the Member for Berwick and East Lothian (Mr. Mackintosh), we shall of course have consultations. I look forward in particular to the consultations which I shall have with my right hon. Friend, who has given great assistance to the House over the whole of his lifetime and in the question he has put today.

Mr. Hooson: If the Government are determined to have one Bill, will the Leader of the House consider that clauses which affect only Wales and clauses which affect only Scotland should be discussed in Committee in the Welsh Grand Committee and the Scottish Grand Committee and that the whole matter should then be discussed on Report in the House? As this matter affects Wales in particular, Scotland in particular and the United Kingdom in general, is that not the way to deal with it?

Mr. Foot: If I were to be forthcoming in reply to the hon. and learned Gentleman I might be accused of participating in his election. I would only say to him that we have looked at this possibility. Naturally, I am always interested in being able to abbreviate time taken by the House if it can be decently done, but it is extremely difficult, as far as we can see, to split the Bill in that way. We do not believe that it would simplify matters or save the time of the House, but we shall look afresh at the matter under the inspiration of the hon. and learned Gentleman.

Mr. Cledwyn Hughes: My right hon. Friend's statement will be widely welcomed in Wales as being a clear fulfilment of our election pledge given in 1974. Will he bear in mind that many people in Wales would like the structure of local government in the Principality to be looked at at the same time because they feel that a new Assembly would lead, along with the existing local government system, to a little bit of over-government in the Principality?

Mr. Foot: If I were to say what people in Wales think about the present structure of local government, I should be had up for using unparliamentary language. Therefore, I cannot elaborate on this at the moment, but I appreciate my right hon. Friend's points and I am well aware of the strong feeling in Wales on this subject, and perhaps in other parts of the country as well, and I believe that we have to make a fresh approach to the subject.

Mr. Sproat: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that most people in this House, and in the country, will regard his statement as springing from nothing other than shameful appeasement and the further concessions he has announced today as owing nothing to trying genuinely to improve the government of the country but a misguided attempt to buy Labour votes? As to getting the Bill through the House, will he accept from me that the opposition he will face on this matter will make the warfare that he waged over reform of the House of Lords look like a gentle tea party?

Mr. Foot: I understand that the hon. Gentleman has not yet converted his own party to his views. He had better not threaten us until he has succeeded with that operation. What we are proposing derives from a quite different source than that which he has described. Many of us in this House have argued for years that there ought to be a proper decentralisation of power. Power is too much concentrated in the centre, and we believe that it is democratic to have a form of devolution. That is the real source of the proposals we are making. Of course Conservatives such as the right hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mr. Gilmour)—I see that he has retired hurt—are in favour of that. I should have thought that some Conservative Members


would also want to see our institutions made more democratic. We on this side of the House have made up our minds on the subject.

Several Hon. Members: rose…

Mr. Speaker: Order. I shall take two more questions only because we cannot debate this matter today.

Mr. Stott: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the question of devolution and the alleged benefits which it will bring affect only a tenth of the total population of the United Kingdom? There are 45 million people in England who may want to say something on this matter. Before he formulates the final draft of the Bill, is he aware that he should take cognisance of what is being said to him by the English regions, by the trade unions in those regions and by the Members of Parliament who represent those regions?

Mr. Foot: I fully accept what my hon. Friend says. I do not quarrel with any word that he has used in that connection. But our policy of seeking the best course for keeping the United Kingdom united is the best way to serve England as well as Scotland and Wales.

Mr. Tapsell: When the right hon. Gentleman says in his statement that, under the Government's proposals, the Secretary of State for Scotland will act on the advice of the proposed Scottish Assembly and its Chief Executive, and then says in the next breath that he will reserve the right to overrule those recommendations when they involve unacceptable repercussions for the United Kingdom as a whole, is he not postulating a constitutional formula which is bound to plunge this country into almost permanent constitutional crisis and lead to the break-up of the United Kingdom?

Mr. Foot: The hon. Gentleman may have heard my statement read hastily, but I am afraid that he has mixed up two different passages relating to two entirely different functions—one of the Secretary of State accepting the decision of the Assembly about the appointment of a Chief Executive, and the other, which is quite different from the question of the vires of the Assembly, of what would be the relationship between the

Secretary of State and the conduct of the Assembly. They are quite different matters, as I think he will see from even a cursory reading of my statement when he is able to read it.

Mr. Robert Hughes: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, I have a query about the availability of the Lord President's statement. Would you prefer me to raise the matter now or later?

Mr. Speaker: I should be grateful if the hon. Member would wait a while and raise it after the next statement.

CHILD BENEFIT SCHEME

4.12 p.m.

The Secretary of State for the Social Services (Mr. David Ennals): With permission, I should like to make a statement on the implementation of the child benefit scheme—[Interruption.]

Mrs. Castle: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I am sorry to intervene, but it is quite impossible to hear what my right hon. Friend is saying with all the passing to and fro by hon. Members and the chatter.

Mr. Speaker: I hope that hon. Members will heed that request.

Mr. Ennals: The child benefit scheme is a structural reform of great social value and we are determined that its primary objective, the provision of a cash benefit for the first child, should go ahead. Abandonment of this principle would mean that first children would attract no universal benefit and that no progress would be made in this vital area of social policy.
Introduction of the scheme in its original form would, however, have imposed an excessive strain on the pay policy which is vital to the Government's continuing success in overcoming inflation. Current circumstances are not the occasion for the drastic reduction in take-home pay which a substantial cut in child tax allowances would have entailed. Even the abolition of the under-11 rate would have reduced take-home pay by over £3 for a two-child family, £4 for a three-child family and nearly £8 for the really large family with six children.
Inevitably the Government were faced with a dilemma over take-home pay. On


the one hand, restraints of pay policy require that there should be only a limited increase; on the other, the full implementation of the child benefit scheme would have meant for many workers that the whole of this increase and more would be taken away when they lost their child tax allowances.
The Government have therefore decided that the new increased child tax allowances should remain unchanged. Moreover, in view of the overriding need to contain public expenditure and the borrowing requirement as a further plank in the Government's economic strategy, it would not have been possible to combine these arrangements with an improvement in family support sufficient to justify such drastic reductions in take-home pay.
What we propose, therefore, is to carry out our manifesto commitment to introduce a new system of child allowances for every child, including the first, payable to the mother. We shall introduce child benefit in April 1977 at £1 for the first child and £1·50, as family allowance now, for other children. The same tax arrangement as for family allowance will apply but families who do not pay tax will, of course, get the full £1. In addition we shall add to this basic rate a premium of 50p for one-parent families to maintain the value of the benefit they are now receiving by way of child interim benefits. The net cost of these proposals in 1977 will be about £95 million. The scheme was anticipated in the Government's White Paper on Public Expenditure and the cost is within the White Paper plans.
We shall shortly be seeking an affirmative resolution for the regulation fixing the rates, and other regulations, including the commencement Order, will be made soon.

Mr. Patrick Jenkin: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that everyone with an interest in this subject will regard that statement as the final collapse of the Government's strategy for family support? Do the Government recognise that, by abandoning the tax credit principle, inherent in their original child benefit scheme, they are reducing the help to the poorest families and deepening the effect of the poverty trap? Is it the case that, although the TUC has all along accepted the principle of a transfer from the pay

packet to the mother's handbag—a commitment repeated only yesterday by Mr. Murray—the Government's central excuse for abandoning their original child benefit proposals is that this transfer will reduce pay packets?
Will the Secretary of State confirm that this inferior scheme will actually cost more than the scheme originally proposed of combining child benefits at a modest level of perhaps £2·50 a week with the retention of reduced tax allowances to make sure that no standard rate taxpayer was worse off? Would he confirm that the cost of £95 million compares with about £40 million for the scheme originally envisaged?
Is this not yet another shameful example—like the pension uprating announced last month—of the Government having won elections on promises they cannot now honour?

Mr. Ennals: That is a very hypocritical reaction to the statement. In the first place, this fully implements the commitment made in our manifesto, both in February and in October 1974. When the right hon. Gentleman refers to what we have done or not done for families, I would say that this Government's record will stand criticism or inspection from any source. We have just made a substantial increase in child tax allowances. Last year, family allowances were increased. This year, we have introduced child interim benefit, which in effect extends the family allowance to the first child for one-parent families. The poorer families—those in receipt of social security and supplementary benefits—will receive further increases in November, and in July the level of FIS will be increased.
Our record is one of which we are proud. I have to say, of course, that this Government would wish that they had been able to go further, but I do not accept for a moment that we have abandoned the original scheme. In fact, I have made it clear that it is our intention in time to bring it in, and to do so in its entirety—[HON. MEMBERS: "When?"] Hon. Members may ask, "When, when, when?" but let them ask their constituents whether they would be prepared to accept at this stage and in this time of pay policy the sort of cut which would be required if we were to


introduce the new scheme. At this stage the pay policy is very much dependent on take-home pay. That will be a central issue in the mind of the worker as we move forward during the present policy.

Mrs. Castle: Is my right hon. Friend aware that there will be dismay on this side of the House at the postponement—I say postponement but it appears to be abandonment—of one of this party's major reforms, a new system of family support which, by combining the family allowance with the child tax allowance, first concentrated Government help for families on the woman who has to provide the budgeting for the upbringing of the child, the mother of the family, and, secondly, concentrated support on those families too poor to pay tax which at present do not get the benefit of child support?
Is my right hon. Friend aware that his comment on the effect on take-home pay simply will not wash, for the reason that the report, "The Social Contract 1976–1977", which the Trades Union Congress is to present to a Special Congress on pay policy next month, includes a welcome to the Government's announcement that they were to go ahead with the introduction of this child benefit scheme in April or May next year, and calls on the Government to make the provision as generous as possible? That is action by the TUC as, in its view, a means of helping to "sell" this pay policy. Will my right hon. Friend, therefore, do what I would have done and refuse to accept this decision?

Mr. Ennals: My right hon. Friend refers to dismay. I certainly accept that there will be disappointment in many quarters, but I must tell her that I do not believe that workers up and down the country had fully understood the effect this would have on their take-home pay. I wish that it had been understood. But I fear that there would have been dismay—to use my right hon. Friend's word—in April of next year, had the scheme been implemented fully, when someone with three children found his income reduced at a stroke by £4·30 as a result of the introduction of the scheme, or when someone with four children suffered a reduction of £5·44. That would have caused dismay.
The important point is that we have introduced this scheme. As economic circumstances change, we shall have an opportunity not only to vary the rate of benefit but also to take steps as we think appropriate in terms of the child tax allowance to introduce the scheme in its entirety.

Mr. Hall-Davis: Is the Secretary of State aware that his statement will be regarded by mothers of children as a betrayal and by fathers of children as an insult? Is he further aware that all the evidence given by TUC representatives to the Select Committee on tax credits was strongly in favour of the change and fully recognised the impact on pay packets? Will he further accept that it is just at a time of family financial stringency, such as the present, that the change would have had its greatest value, and that all the evidence from informed social workers shows that the introduction of a special pay packet direct to the wife would have been a step of the greatest assistance in eliminating poverty and sustaining the sound family budget that could have been introduced?

Mr. Ennals: I completely agree with the principle enunciated by the hon. Gentleman, which has also been enunciated by my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle), my predecessor. This would have been a vital social change of tremendous benefit for the wife. But we are asked to introduce this in its entirety precisely at a time when, on the one hand, we have the necessity to control public expenditure—and hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite will not challenge me on that—and, on the other hand, and at the same time, quite clearly we have to sustain our anti-inflation policy by an effective pay policy. It would have been a challenge to that pay policy.
In relation to poor families, I must say that there will be at least 200,000 which will not greet this announcement with dismay but will welcome the fact that we have introduced a benefit for the first child, a step which no party previously has taken. Hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite are lecturing us today about what we ought to do, but during their period in office they never brought in family allowance for the first child or


uprated family allowances, so I will not take criticism from them.

Mr. Ashley: Is my right hon. Friend aware that this announcement indicates very clearly that the Government's much-heralded attack on family poverty is losing momentum and may well be in danger of fizzling out if more strength is not shown in attacking that poverty? This is not the kind of announcement we expect from a Labour Government. Is my right hon. Friend further aware that, although we understand the Government's economic difficulties, sympathise with them and are prepared to defend the Government against asinine attacks from hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite, we are not prepared to accept an indefinite postponement of the child benefit scheme?

Mr. Eanals: I very much appreciate the point made by my hon. Friend. The Government policy to assist poor families will not lose its momentum. This is one contribution to relieve poverty among poor families, because some of the greatest poverty is found in single-parent families. This will help not only the single-child families but other families, too.
There are, of course, other methods which we must try to follow, but I am certain that my hon. Friend will know that we are introducing a scheme which, while admittedly it is not complete, is the basis of the scheme which has passed through this House. He will understand that we are doing this at a total public expenditure cost of £95 million. Though we would have liked to do more, he will understand that the present economic situation makes it impossible for us to have available sums of the kind which both sides of the House would like to have available.

Mr. Penhaligon: May I remind the Minister that a majority of voters in this country are women, many of whom will see this announcement as an insult and as a victory for trade union male chauvinism? Will he let the House know the effect of this announcement on the family budget of somebody earning approximately two-thirds the national average wage with, say, two children under the age of 11?

Mr. Ennals: For those who are on full tax, the benefit will be very modest—only 30p in family benefit as a result of the scheme. If we wanted to make the amount higher we should have had to find additional public expenditure, which would not have been possible at this time. It is true that some wives may be disappointed, but this is a very important step forward in that the Government have decided to bring in benefit for the first child. That is a social reform that has been long demanded and I am proud that this Government, by what is inevitably a modest introduction of the child benefit scheme, at least is fulfilling that aim.

Mr. John Garrett: Is my hon. Friend aware that there is no single objective of social policy more important than putting money into the hands of mothers in low-wage families? Is he also aware that the first child is the most expensive child and that many hon. Members on this side of the House will consider this statement to be simply a concession to male chauvinism?

Mr. Ennals: It is essential that my colleagues on this side of the House and hon. and right hon. Gentlemen on the other side of the House should, for a period of a week or a fortnight, conduct a seminar among husbands and wives to establish whether the husband really understood the implications of the scheme and whether he will be prepared to help during this period of pay policy as a result of which he would find that the increase that he was permitted under the pay policy could be more than swallowed up by the introduction of a scheme which, I accept, has tremendous social value.

Mrs. Bain: Does the Secretary of State understand the difference between family income and wages? His announcement does nothing to increase the average family income and is an insult to the poorer sections of the community, particularly one-parent families. Does the right hon. Gentleman know that it is a famous old Scottish adage that under Labour Governments the poor get poorer?

Mr. Ennals: It is not so. This scheme will help families with one child and it will help all families. There is no point in the hon. Lady's saying that the additional expenditure of £95 million which


is being directed towards this new benefit will not be of particular help to the poor.

Mrs. Hayman: Is my right hon. Friend aware that most people in the country have a better idea of family income and the benefits that the scheme would have brought to families, not just to wives, than the Cabinet appears to have? What is my right hon. Friend's evidence that the introduction of the scheme would have put an excessive strain on pay policy, when the TUC made clear that it did not say that the scheme would put such a strain on pay policy? Does my right hon. Friend recognise that his announcement is a disappointment and an insult to the 80 Labour Members of Parliament who last night signed a motion asking for full implementation of the scheme?

Mr. Ennals: I suspect that my hon. Friend, who, I understand, initiated the motion which has collected so many signatures from both sides of the House, expected that a statement would be made that the whole scheme was about to be deferred. I saw suggestions in the newspapers that an announcement would be made deferring the scheme for one, two or three years. My hon. Friends should welcome the statement, which announces the beginning of the scheme and provides a basis from which we can expand.

Mr. D. E. Thomas: Does the Secretary of State accept that the statement is a nail in the coffin of the social contract? I understood the social contract to be an agreement about wages and about social policy. Will the right hon. Gentleman discuss this question with the TUC to discover whether the trade union movement accepts that the benefit should be implemented in full?

Mr. Ennals: I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman should lecture some of us about our experience within the trade union movement and the attitude of trade union leaders and others. I seriously doubt whether trade union leaders and many Members of Parliament fully recognised the important consequence which the scheme would have had on take-home pay. As part of the seminar in our constituencies in which we talk to the workers and their wives we might also discuss this matter with trade unionists and their wives.

Mrs. Hart: In his concern about the effect on workers of the discovery that they would be taxed to pay for the higher allowances, has my right hon. Friend in mind that the principle of the scheme was introduced in the 1968 Budget when, for the first time, we related family allowances to tax take-back? Will my right hon. Friend look at the correspondence of that time? My recollection from the period when I was Minister of Social Security is that there were few objections to or difficulties in understanding the principle once it had been explained. There is a considerable mythology in the Treasury, and possibly in the Department of Health and Social Security, about the likely impact of the scheme upon workers and I believe that it would have been welcomed, not resisted.

Mr. Ennals: My right hon. Friend and the House have to recognise that, while I completely agree with the principle on which the child benefit scheme was initiated, at this moment we are in a difficult economic situation. The transfer of family support from husband to wife has always been an integral part of the scheme, but acceptance in the pay policy arrangements of take-home pay rather than gross pay as a significant factor has put that principle in a rather different light. The transfer must be made gradually, and our proposals are a beginning. They will become more acceptable when pay limits are less tight.

Mr. Kenneth Clarke: Has the Secretary of tate had an opportunity of looking at how many times the present Government's previous team of social Ministers assured the House in terms that the change to child benefits would be introduced in April 1977 and dismissed as fanciful the fears expressed on both sides of the House that it might be subjected to further delay? Does the Secretary of State realise that the reason he gives for postponing this reform is a silly objection, thought of at the last moment by members of the Government team responsible for pay policy. an objection which was not thought to be worth arguing by any sensible person on either side of the House or by the trade union movement during the two or three years in which child benefit developed to its present stage?

Mr. Ennals: The hon. Gentleman puts his question as if I had announced the deferment of the introduction of the scheme and said that we were unable to implement our promise to introduce a new child allowance for the first child. I have said that as from April next year we shall introduce a new benefit for the first child. That has never been done before. It has long been the policy of the Labour Party, although not of the Conservative Party.

Mr. Radice: I understand the problems which face the Government, but will my right hon. Friend accept from me that hon Members on both sides of the House are deeply disappointed by the Government's decision? What effect will the delay have on the offices dealing with child benefit at Washington New Town in my constituency?

Mr Ennals: If I had announced the postponement instead of the commencement of the scheme, Washington would have been faced with great problems. I am happy to tell my hon. Friend that by my announcement of the launching of the scheme his constituency interests have been respected.

Sir George Young: Will the Secretary of State address himself to the question put by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wanstead and Woodford (Mr. Jenkin), namely, that for one-half of the public expenditure involved, the original child benefit scheme could have been introduced and would have concentrated the cash on the families who most need it? How can the right hon. Gentleman stand at the Dispatch Box and see his Department's strategy for tackling family poverty torn to shreds by his insensitive Cabinet colleagues?

Mr. Ennals: I am sure that all hon. Members will recognise that any Minister in my position would have preferred to say that the economic situation in terms of public expenditure and pay policy enabled us at this moment to introduce the full scheme, but clearly that is not possible. I cannot pretend that I am happy to make the announcement. The introduction of the full scheme without premium would have cost precisely the same amount, £95 million. The new level of child benefit would have been £2·50. That would have been substantially paid for by a greater reduction in

take-home pay. I gave the figures for the introduction of the full scheme.

Mr. Cryer: Does my right hon. Friend realise that, although there may be some disappointment on the Labour Benches, there is also some pleasure in that the Government have not retreated to the extent suggested in the newspapers and have started the scheme? Will my right hon. Friend comment on the hypocrisy of the Opposition who dare to talk in the same breath of cuts in public expenditure and implementation of the full scheme? Within the framework of the present taxation policy, does my right hon. Friend think that the only way to implement the full scheme is by swingeing cuts in defence expenditure?

Mr. Ennals: I shall not rise to the last part of that question but will answer the first part. It is clear that the criticisms by the Opposition—I am not talking about my right hon. and hon. Friends—and their wish to introduce the full scheme at the high level of benefit that we all want would have made a much more substantial demand on public expenditure than is possible. The Opposition know that. It is they and not my right hon. and hon. Friends who are pressurising for increased cuts in public expenditure. I accept what their criticism of me would have been if today I had made a statement saying that we were deferring the scheme. Instead, I announced a scheme which will make an additional call on public expenditure of £95 million, which was taken into consideration in the White Paper. I agree with my hon. Friend that the Opposition's hypocrisy has to be seen to be believed.

Mr. Patrick Jenkin: Does the right hon. Gentleman recognise that even on his own figures he could have introduced a much better scheme even for the same money? Does he recognise that he could have introduced a scheme which would give more help to the poor family at a reduced cost? Is he aware that with the somewhat dubious exception of his hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Mr. Cryer) his scheme has found not a friend on either side of the House? I appeal to the right hon. Gentleman to take it away and think again.

Mr. Ennals: If we had introduced what I would call the £2·50 scheme without a premium, which would have cost £95 million, families with more than three


children would have been worse off. I have to admit that I would have liked to see a much bigger scheme. The scheme which I have announced today will mean that all two-parent families will be better off, including Opposition hon. Members paying all the tax that they do.
If the right hon. Gentleman asks me to take this away and come back with a new statement, he must tell me whether he wants me to drop this scheme or whether he believes, on public expenditure grounds, that we should put more in.

Mr. Jenkin: The right hon. Gentleman has challenged me. I said that he could introduce a scheme at less cost to confer greater benefits to everyone and not to large numbers on either side of the House who have one child and are on high tax rates.

Mr. Ennals: The right hon. Gentleman should go home and do his arithmetic again.

Mr. Rooker: Will my right hon. Friend stop saying that he has introduced a new scheme, and confirm that he has introduced a new benefit? That is Orwellian newspeak. How can I explain that to my constituents? The Government saw fit to put an educational leaflet through the door of every household last year for the pay policy, inferring that everyone needed educating about the scheme. Why does he not put that educational process into action now? Why not try to sell the child benefit scheme to the public as part of the massive Government advertising which takes place every day on other schemes? My right hon. Friend has done nothing except spend £116,000—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I hope to call each of the remaining four hon. Members who have been on their feet if we have brief questions.

Mr. Ennals: My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker) is absolutely right. There needs to be a major education campaign throughout the country so that people will understand fully the implications of what I believe will be a great social reform. But it is difficult to introduce a scheme at a time when there is not that understanding and at a time when take-home pay is the central issue in pay policy. My hon. Friend can say to his

constituents that the Labour Government are fulfilling the obligations contained in the February and October manifestos on which he fought his election. He can say that we are introducing a new system of child allowances for every child, including the first, which is payable to the mother. That is what the scheme is.

Mr. Peter Bottomley: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the criticism directed at him is also directed at his Cabinet colleagues, because, with increases of public expenditure of £7,000 million, they can find only £95 million for first children? That is worth less than £15 a year per child. What kind of Socialist planning is it when, in the four weeks since the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) left office, a scheme that we have been hearing about for years turns into a totally different idea?

Mr. Ennals: The lectures from the Opposition about public expenditure fall from me like water off a duck's back. Of course, any Government committed, as we were, to the full implementation of the scheme would have preferred to introduce it at a time when there were no restraints on expenditure and no necessity for a pay policy in the battle against inflation. The Opposition seem not to care at all about the implications of the battle against inflation. We must have that in mind in every action that we take. We can introduce the best social reform in the world, but if we do not achieve a strengthening of our economy we shall be in serious difficulty.

Mr. Leadbitter: Is my right hon. Friend aware that before he took office about five weeks ago the child benefit scheme was costed, well thought out and accepted by the Government, the Parliamentary Labour Party, the NEC and the TUC? From none of those quarters has there been criticism or a request for a review or for a modified scheme. What flash of blinding light or on the road to Damascus has come to my right hon. Friend in such a short period of time so that he insults the Parliamentary Labour Party and rejects the TUC recommendation? Will he be honest and tell the House that his present proposals are taxable and, therefore, worth nothing at all?

Mr. Ennals: I concede that they are taxable. I said that in my statement. But it is not true that they mean nothing at all. Has my hon. Friend done his own homework? The level of child benefit had not been decided when I took up my present post and, therefore, the precise effects on take home pay had not been calculated. I do not know how many children my hon. Friend or any other hon. Member has, but does my hon. Friend know that for a man with four children the effect on his take-home pay would have been a reduction of £5·44—at a stroke? Can he accept that to do that at a time of current pay policy would have made sense?

Mr. McNamara: Is my right hon. Friend aware that many of his justifications of the economic situation smack of the nineteenth century, children in textile mills, boys working up chimneys and women down pits? If he had had the good fortune to be in the House when the Tories were in power, he would know that the right hon. Member for Leeds, Noth-East (Sir K. Joseph) used similar arguments when introducing his piddling little FIS scheme. Is he aware that he has insulted trade union-sponsored Member of the House who have spent a long time talking to trade unions and constituents about how the scheme would work and exactly how their wives' family allowances would be increased on a Tuesday to make up for what was lost from the pay packet on a Friday? Does he realise that we shall have great difficulty in getting his legislation?

Mr. Ennals: I do not require legislation. Legislation has already been put through.

DEVOLUTION (MINISTER'S STATEMENT)

Mr. Robert Hughes: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. The House is always in great difficulty when important statements are made from the Front Bench. May I ask you to institute inquiries about the availability of the statement made today by my right hon. Friend the Lord President of the Council? One understands the necessity for parliamentary minorities to be taken into account in making copies of statements available to

leaders of Opposition parties, no matter how large or how small. My understanding is that such documents are usually maked "Confidential", and if they are not they are certainly always regarded as such, unless I am very much mistaken.
I have given the Leader of the Scottish National Party notice that I would raise this point of order. I saw every member of his party reading that statement at 3.20 p.m., before it was made. If the document was marked "Confidential" and issued on that understanding, is not a breach of confidence under the rules by which this matter is handled? If the statements are issued on the basis that they can be photocopied and handed out to all and sundry, would it not be a courtesy to Government Back Benchers as well as to the Opposition if they were available to Members before they were made?

Mr. Speaker: The distribution of statements is a matter for the Ministers concerned. The statement made today was an ordinary statement after Questions. The contents and how it is distributed have nothing to do with me as Speaker.

Mr. Buchan: I understand your answer, Mr. Speaker, but we seek guidance. To help the House, would it not be appropriate if a spokesman of the Scottish National Party told us whether that party broke the usual convention by duplicating the document?

Mr. Speaker: No, it would not.

Several hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: We shall not debate a point of order. I have given my ruling on it, and that ruling must stand. I call Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop, on a point of order.

Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: rose—

Mr. Henderson: Further to the point of order—

Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: I have been called by Mr. Speaker. I wish to raise—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I do not wish to do an injustice to anyone, but there is no point in our discussing a ruling which I have made. Perhaps it would help the House if the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, East (Mr. Henderson)


sought to make a brief statement, but my feeling is that it would not help the House but would start another argument. We are dealing with a point of order. It would be much better for the House if the hon. Members concerned got together.

AIRCRAFT AND SHIPBUILDING INDUSTRIES BILL

Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: I wish to raise with you, Mr. Speaker, a point of order concerning the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Bill, a point of order concerning part of which I have given you notice but including some facts that I have been able to verify only since Question Time began, when you were in the Chair.
At 2.50 p.m. today I deposited in the Bag behind your Chair, thereby presenting it to the House, a petition by Iain Alexander Dewar Mann, a shareholder in the parent company of Yarrow (Shipbuilders) Limited, which company is included in Part I of Schedule 2 of the Bill. In his petition, the petitioner seeks relief which would be available to him under the provisions which this House adopts in respect of hybrid Bills but which is not available to objectors and petitioners in respect of a public general Bill. As there is no right of audience before a Standing Committee of this House, we are dealing with an actual rather than a hypothetical event.
I submit to you, Mr. Speaker, that the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Bill is properly a hybrid Bill and should therefore be referred to a Select Committee or Joint Committee, as the House in its normal procedure for dealing with hybrid Bills would order.
My grounds for submitting that the Bill is properly a hybrid Bill and not a public general Bill are as follows. First, for the purpose of the Bill a company is a shipbuilding company, and is required to transfer its assets to the body corporate called British Shipbuilders, if it falls within the class defined in Schedule 2, which includes these relevant conditions in paragraph (2)(1):
if—(a) it was on 31st July 1974, entitled, either alone or together with another company which was then a member of the same group

of companies, to an interest in possession in a shipyard which on that date was being used for the construction of ships; and
(b) the aggregate of the total tonnage of the ships completed in that shipyard and in any associated shipyards during the period of three years ending on 31st July 1974 exceeded the specified minimum.
Excluding warships, this specified minimum is 15,000 gross tons.
It is not disputed that Yarrow (Shipbuilders) Limited falls within this definition. The firm is accordingly included in Schedule 2, at line 17, page 75 of the Bill. But Marathon Shipbuilding (UK) Limited also falls within that definition, as I shall now show. The report by the official liquidator of Upper Clyde Shipbuilders Limited for the year ended 14th June 1972 shows that contracts Nos. 112 and 117 for the delivery of two Clyde-class cargo vessels which were each of a gross registered tonnage of 11,506 tons were completed and the vessels delivered respectively on 20th January 1972 and 25th April 1972—that is, within the period of three years preceding 31st July 1974, which period commenced on 1st August 1971.
On 8th August 1972 Marathon Shipbuilding (UK) Limited acquired Clydebank shipyard, in which both of the aforementioned vessels were in course of construction, which construction was continued by the liquidator of Upper Clyde Shipbuilders after Marathon had purchased the Clydebank yard. It is clear from that that Marathon falls within paragraph 2(1)(b) of Part II of Schedule 2.
The facts, which I have been able to verify only within the past hour and a half, show that it also conclusively falls within paragraph 2(1)(a), which requires among other things that the shipyard concerned must have been
being used for the construction of ships
on 31st July 1974. I have verified from the Shipbuilders and Repairers National Association that on 31st July 1974 there was under construction at Clydebank shipyard a vessel called "Key Victoria" of 3,885 gross tons, which vessel was a ship falling within the definition appearing in lines 37 to 40 on page 77 of the Bill. That vessel was completed on 14th October 1974.
I will read the applicable part of that definition, as it is short. It is as follows:
6. In this Part of this Schedule"—
paragraph 2(1)(a) to which I am referring is also in Part II—
'ship' means a floating or submersible vessel with an integral hull and, except in the case of a warship, of over 100 gross tons".
The "Key Victoria" is a vessel intended to float, it is of 3,885 gross tons, and the Shipbuilders and Repairers National Association has communicated with the American Bureau of Shipping to confirm its configuration, which is that of a barge.
There is no doubt whatever, therefore, that it not only falls within the definition of a ship, as defined in this Bill, but it incidentally also falls within the definition both of a ship and of a vessel in Clause 7(4)(ii) of the Merchant Shipping Act 1894. This is important, because it covers, for instance, the disciplinary rights of the master of such a ship.
Although Marathon Shipbuilding (UK) Limited clearly falls within the provisions of the qualifying conditions laid down in Schedule 2 to the Bill, it was arbitrarily excluded from the Bill while its competitor, Yarrow (Shipbuilders) Limited, was arbitrarily included.
This arbitrary exclusion of one company and inclusion of another, when both companies fall within the same definition in Schedule 2 to the Bill, endows this Bill with the characteristics of a hybrid Bill and not a public general Bill. It should, therefore, be treated as a hybrid Bill, now that the House has become aware of its hybrid nature, before entering into further consideration of this Bill as would be the case were the Bill instead a public general Bill.
I add one further point. It is not necessary, for the purpose of this Bill, either in the definition which I have quoted to you or in the two definitions in the Merchant Shipping Act 1894, that the vessel should possess an engine, nor does it exclude the possibility of the vessel being used for some operation on the sea floor. Indeed, were that the case, no dredger would count as a vessel, whereas in fact every dredger counts as a vessel.
It is, therefore, completely immaterial whether a vessel dredges the bottom of the sea floor, drills a hole through the

bottom of the sea floor, or is used to carry goods or merchandise abroad. It is a vessel within the definition in the Merchant Shipping Act. It is a ship within the definition in the Merchant Shipping Act. It is a ship within the definition specifically included in the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Bill, which definition was not amended in Committee and to which, Mr. Speaker. I have drawn your attention.
Lastly, my submission in no way implies a lack of diligence on the part of the authorities of the House, because the facts to which I have drawn your attention, Mr. Speaker, are not facts which were evident prima facie from reading the Bill.
It is necessary also to be aware of the tonnages constructed in the relevant period, and this is knowledge outside the ken of the authorities of the House until it is brought specifically to their notice. Nor is there anything in the Bill which informs the authorities of the House that on 31st July 1974 there was indeed a ship under construction at Clydebank shipyard which falls within the provisions of paragraph 2(1)(a) of Part II of Schedule 2 to the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Bill.
I want to make that quite clear, because it is unusual to raise the question of hybridity at this stage rather than at Second Reading. It is normally raised by virtue of the drafting of the Bill. In this case I am raising it at the first moment at which I have become aware of the facts which I have reported to you, Mr. Speaker, some of which I have been able to verify, as I said, only since you took the Chair this afternoon.
It is those facts which render the Bill a hybrid Bill, and unless we now adopt the procedure which in its wisdom the House has laid down for dealing with hybrid Bills, the petitioners will be denied the redress which the House has specifically laid down for Bills which differentiate arbitrarily between given individuals or bodies corporate which fall within a clause within a Bill.
It is that characteristic which enables the House to recognise a hybrid Bill rather than a Bill which can properly continue in the procedures which are uniquely appropriate to a public general


Bill, the characteristics of which are deficient in respect of those points which I have put to you in this submission.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop) had fortunately given me notice of the matters that he wished to raise, with the sole exception of two details that he brought into his argument. The fact that the hon. Gentleman gave me a very long and detailed statement, which I much appreciated, also enabled me to take advice and to consider this matter.
Although the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Bill was examined in the usual way for the possibility of hybridity and was found not to be hybrid, as soon as I received the hon. Member's submission in a letter at 1.45 this afternoon, I asked for the matter to be examined afresh. This was done.
The hon. Member is correct in submitting that Marathon Shipbuilding (UK) Limited fulfils the qualifying conditions laid down in paragraph 2(1)(b) of Part II of Schedule 2 to the Bill. But it does not meet the conditions laid down in paragraph 2(1)(a) of Part II of the schedule, because on the qualifying date the shipyard, though owned by the company concerned, was not being used for the construction of ships. It was, in fact, being used for the manufacture of offshore drilling rigs and for the conversion of a ship to a rig.
For these reasons, the submissions made by the hon. Member do not support the case for hybridity in the Bill, and I therefore so rule.

Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: I naturally regret, Mr. Speaker, that I was not myself in the position to give you, until rising now, the information as to what was actually happening on 31st July 1974. Naturally, I did not wish to supply you with inaccurate information. I have identified the actual vessel. Instead of making a general proposition about classes of vessel I have identified to you an actual vessel called the "Key Victoria", which was under construction on that day as required by the Bill. It is of 3,885 gross registered tons, and the American Bureau of Shipping has confirmed to the Shipbuilders and Repairers National Association that it is a vessel having the characteristic hull form of a barge.
In view of this information, which you did not have, Mr. Speaker, when your ruling was composed—indeed, which I did not have when your ruling was composed, but which both I and you now have—I submit that the position has changed since you were able to take advice at that time, since the use to which the vessel is put in the course of its navigation, whether it drills, whether it dredges, whether it transports people or materials, or whether indeed it travels in ballast or empty, or, indeed, is at anchor, is immaterial. This vessel, the "Key Victoria", of 3,885 tons, which was under construction de novo, is a ship within the definition which I have quoted to you, namely,
ship' means a floating or submersible vessel with an integral hull".
Unless there is evidence to rebut that which I have put to you, Mr. Speaker,—namely, that this vessel was under construction on 31st July 1974 and did not complete its construction until considerably later that year, and very much after the date concerned—then we have established the facts now which are needed to place that Clydebank shipyard within the provisions of paragraph 2(1)(a) as well as paragraph 2(1)(b) of Part II of Schedule 2, and if that is established, this is a hybrid Bill.

Mr. Speaker: I can tell the hon. Gentleman at once that I have had the most searching inquiries made since two o'clock this afternoon and that my ruling is made on the basis of the inquiries that were made on my behalf, and I must stand by my ruling. If the House does not like it, hon. Members must table a motion, because this is my considered ruling.

Mr. Heseltine: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. Obviously the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop) has been added to since the original submission to you was made, and he has put before you a matter of fact which would be capable of easy resolution in the light of the checking that could now take place. The House is not to proceed with further consideration of the Bill until after dealing with the motion for the Whitsun adjournment, and, as what we are looking at is a matter of fact, and as no one, least of all anyone on the Opposition side


of the House, would wish to be put in a position such as that which you anticipated in your last reply, would it not be possible for further inquiries about a strict matter of fact to be undertaken before we proceed with the Report stage of the Bill?

Mr. Speaker: I am very much obliged to the hon. Gentleman for the way in which he has made his request. Inquiries will, of course, be made, and I shall make a statement at the beginning of the other business when we come to it.

PUBLIC LENDING RIGHT BILL [Lords]

Order for Second Reading read.

Motion made,
That the Public Lending Right Bill [Lords] be referred to a Second Reading Committee.—[Mr. John Ellis.]

Mr. Speaker: The Question is—

Hon. Members: Object.

Mr. Speaker: Objection taken. I call the Prime Minister to move the Adjournment motion.

Several Hon.Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. We have passed beyond the motion on the Public Lending Right Bill. We are on the next motion.

Mr. George Cunningham: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. My understanding is that when a motion is made that a Bill be referred to a Second Reading Committee, rather than being taken on the Floor of the House, it is necessary for Members objecting to that motion to stand in a number not fewer than 20. [HON. MEMBERS: "We did."] It is very difficult to ascertain, over a second or two, whether the number 20 has been exceeded, but my genuine guess would be that it was approaching 20 but was fewer than 20.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman is correct when he says that there must be no fewer than 20 Members who rise in their place. My impression was that 20 Members had risen. However, I am liable to Celtic exaggeration, and I am prepared to put the Question. The Question is,
That the Public Lending Right Bill [Lords] be referred to a Second Reading Committee.
Not less than 20 Members having risen in their places and signified their objection thereto, Mr. SPEAKER declared that the Noes had it, pursuant to Standing Order No. 66 (Second Reading Committees).

Mr. Henderson: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Would it not be helpful in these circumstances to hold a secret ballot, as the Conservatives insisted on in relation to trade union elections and which they so signally failed to carry out at their recent conference in Scotland?

Mr. Peyton: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. In circumstances such as these, when 20 hon. Members rise and you then give a ruling, I wonder whether it is proper, wise or sensible, if then objection is taken by other quarters of the House, that we then have to go back to the matter. Quite plainly, there would have to be some time limit during which it would be possible to go back and plough the ground over again. I rather hope, Mr. Speaker, that you will look very much askance at the practice of asking you to do it again, because this could land us in great difficulties.

Mr. Speaker: The right hon. Gentleman is quite correct. I shall learn that lesson as from now.

ADJOURNMENT (SPRING)

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House at its rising on Friday do adjourn till Monday 7th June.—[Mr. John Ellis.]

5.15 p.m.

Mr. Fergus Montgomery: Before the House rises for the Whitsun Recess there are two issues on which I hope to get a reply from the Leader of the House today. The first relates to the question of the Education Bill. We have had over 30 Sittings in Committee on the Education Bill. That was more Sittings than we had for the whole of the Education Act 1944, which was perhaps the most important Education Act we have ever had. We finished the Committee stage of the Bill almost two weeks ago. The general impression was that the Report stage would take place in the House before the Whitsun Recess. Those of us who served on the Committee relished the prospect of returning to the attack on what I can only regard as a squalid, nasty Bill. We are entitled to know when the Report stage will take place.
As the Leader of the House is aware, after the recent local government elections many local authorities changed political control. These new local education authorities should now know exactly what the position is so that they can plan education in their areas accordingly. If, as I hope, amendments are made on Report, it will at least give the local education authorities some idea of the situation. At present, they are completely in the dark. It is quite disgraceful that the Government have got their legislative programme into such a mess that the Education Bill has just been pushed to one side.
The second issue that I wish to raise is even more important. As the Leader of the House knows—I am sure that he has read today's newspapers and Hansard for yesterday—in the House yesterday we had a short debate on immigration. Many hon. Members on both sides of the House were anxious to speak in that debate but were not given the chance to speak. It was a very short debate. The hon. Member for York (Mr. Lyon) took exactly 41 minutes of the time in making his speech. When one considers that he is a


member of a party that not so long ago took as its theme "fair shares for all", one can appreciate that he did not yesterday exactly practise what he preaches.
During the debate on immigration we had a very important contribution from the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell), who disclosed a confidential report by a gentleman called Mr. Donald Hawley, who is a senior official at the Foreign Office. I have no doubt that the speech made by the right hon. Member for Down, South has seriously embarrased the Government, because one must ask what has happened to the much vaunted talk about open government that we have had on so many occasions in the past. It could be that open government disappeared when the right hon. Member for Huyton (Sir H. Wilson) ceased to be Prime Minister not that we saw much sign of open government while he was in office.
However, on 5th May the Daily Telegraph disclosed the existence of a secret Foreign Office memorandum urging strict observance of immigration rules. At that time the Foreign Office said that it was absolutely without foundation. We now know, however, that Mr. Hawley visited India, Pakistan and Bangladesh in December 1975, and so senior Ministers in the Government have had this document for some considerable time. Before the House adjourns for the Whitsun Recess, we are entitled to know why that document was kept confidential, because the British people and their Members of Parliament are entitled to know the facts. The abuses that are being practised and which were mentioned in the report by Mr. Hawley are scandalous, and according to Mr. Hawley, Britain has been duped and is still being duped.
The right hon. Member mentioned the growth of travel agencies on the subcontinent, and specifically mentioned that there were 200 travel agencies in Sylhet. The right hon. Member said he doubted whether any hon. Member in this House could point out on a map the exact location of Sylhet. But the point he made was that enormous help has been given by these travel agencies to immigrants to come here illegally.
I do not doubt that this is an emotive issue but it is the conspiracy of silence

which seems to be inspired by the Government which has aroused the suspicions of millions of people in this country.
At the end of yesterday's debate we had a speech from the Home Secretary. I always thought that the Minister who replied to a debate was supposed to reply to the various points. The right hon. Member for Down, South had brought out an important issue, but the Home Secretary did not mention one word about the report. He totally ignored it, yet this was the most controversial issue raised in the whole debate. The silence of the Home Secretary yesterday was calculated only to create more cynicism among the British people. We have reached the stage now where no one believes any of the figures published by the Home Office on immigration.
We need a full debate on immigration preferably before the Whitsun Recess. If this is not possible I hope we will at least have a statement from the Government announcing their intentions on the Hawley Report. Also I hope that we shall have a clear definition of Government policy on immigration, and hopefully, the line which they will take will be that taken by the right hon. Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish) who said, "Enough is enough".
As a nation we are compassionate and tolerant, but that compassion and tolerance is being strained to the utmost. As a nation and a Parliament we should try to ensure that we stop sweeping these matters under the carpet and face the facts realistically.
I hope that the Lord President will give us an assurance that before the Whitsun Recess we shall have a clear statement on immigration and the Government's reaction to the Hawley Report.

5.25 p.m.

Mrs. Judith Hart: While not following what the hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale (Mr. Montgomery) has said, I wish to put forward another reason why we should not adjourn until we have had the opportunity to debate an important and urgent subject. I mention it now, having failed after three efforts to find, through legitimate parliamentary channels, the means of raising it in some other way in the last two days. I refer to the crisis which is occurring in Nairobi, at the four-yearly


conference of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, which is going on until the end of this week.
The conference broke into negotiating committees two weeks ago and we received news over the weekend—which has got worse during the past 24 hours—that it is now in a state of disarray and deadlock. There is a danger that it may break down altogether.
This is a matter not only for the developing countries, for it is of immediate practical concern to everyone in this country. It concerns our own efforts to deal with inflation; it concerns co-operation or confrontation with two-thirds of the world; and it concerns whether there are likely to be problems for this country in ensuring price stability in commodities produced by the developing countries. If any hon. Gentlemen opposite does not perceive how vital this is to Scotland and the United Kingdom as a whole then he had better learn more about what is going on in Nairobi.
The negotiating committees ceased meeting just before the weekend because they reached complete deadlock, and this included two of the most important negotiating committees—one concerning debt, and' the other concerning commodity arrangements and the need for a common fund to support 10 primary commodities.
I quote from this morning's Financial Times:
Many delegates tonight were seriously wondering whether enough time was left to salvage the conference from a failure which could lead to renewed confrontation between the world's rich and poor nations.
Despite the gravity of the situation, some hopes are still alive here tonight that the conference could be saved by a major political effort in the next few days.
What has happened now is that an emergency committee has been set up to report by midnight on Thursday. The British attitude and British policy towards this major issue of commodities in Nairobi is a vital element which will affect whether UNCTAD collapses totally, reaches an agreement to disagree and accepts that it has been a failure, or succeeds.
On the one hand there are countries which have been taking a very hard line on the question of a common fund, which

is what the developing countries are seeking. These countries include West Germany, which traditionally over the past two years has taken a very hard line on developing countries; Japan, the United States and Britain. Other countries have been taking a much more cooperative approach and have given varying degrees of commitment to supporting the principle of a common fund. These countries include the Netherlands, Denmark, to a certain extent France—all the EEC countries—Norway and Sweden. I understand from reports that there also has been some support from the Commission of the EEC. The Commission has been doing its best to bring pressure on those EEC members, like ourselves, who are maintaining a hard line.
Within the next 36 hours we shall have to bear some responsibility either for ensuring that the result of UNCTAD is very considerable, if not complete failure, or for assisting to break the deadlock by understanding the attitudes of the developing countries and identifying with them, and with many of our colleagues among the industrialised countries.
There is an all-party motion signed by 100 hon. Members of this House which particularly asks for a positive approach towards the concept of a common fund and asks that Britain should follow the example of the Netherlands in this respect. It is signed by, among others, six ex-Ministers from both sides of the House who have been concerned with these and other related matters over the past few years. I understand that in reading out the names of those who have signed a motion, I must not mention constituencies. Among those who have signed are myself, my predecessor at the Ministry of Overseas Development, Mr. Richard Wood: another former Minister of Overseas Development, Mrs. Barbara Castle; Sir Bernard Braine, Miss Joan Lestor, Mr. John Davies, and Mr. Douglas Jay.
I think it is essential that this House should not lose, or should not fail to take, an opportunity of influencing the Government in what happens in the next 36 hours in Nairobi. I would hope for a change of policy by the British Government, and that the Secretary of State for Trade will return to Nairobi and tell the conference of that change. We have it


in our hands to influence the outcome of the conference. If we fail to do so we shall be responsible for the consequences which may arise for all industrialised countries, including Britain. This decision involves the prospect of solving our economic and inflationary problems.

5.31 p.m.

Mr. Robert Adley: I wish to draw attention to the threat to the people of this country and their pets from an outbreak of rabies. This is in no way a party matter and I seek to make no party point. I congratulate the Government on having appeared in the last few days to become aware of the concern of many people, particularly of hon. Members who represent coastal constituencies.
There was recently in my constituency an outbreak of canine hepatitis which, while in no way directly comparable with rabies, brought home to people the situation which could arise if action had to be taken quickly to safeguard the health of our pets. Salutary lessons were learned. I have made strenuous efforts in the last two or three weeks in my constituency to discover just how well prepared the authorities there are to cope with an outbreak of rabies.
It would appear that the Ministry of Agriculture has distributed a lot of paper, but there is a lack of clarity and understanding among the authorities concerned about precisely what would have to be done, and done quickly, should an infected animal appear. I asked the harbour master in Lymington what powers he possessed if a dog suspected of being imported illegally were to appear in a boat on the river at Lymington. He said that he possessed no powers to stop or arrest such a vessel and he suggested that I should talk to the police.
I put the position to the local police but they left me with the impression that they would need assurances from the port health authority in Southampton, nearly 20 miles away, if they were to be justified in taking action. It was a weekend, and I tried unsuccessfully to contact the port health authority. I then telephoned the Customs man in Lymington and was greeted by a recorded message asking me to leave the name of my yacht and its whereabouts. All this illustrates that

whilst the authorities are aware of the problem they seem not to have armed themselves with the weapons needed for specific and urgent action.
We should be concentrating upon preventing the disease reaching this country rather than upon the cure which might be put into operation once it got here. For this reason many hon. Members have been pressing for greater clarification of the powers of the police and for increased penalties for those who break the quarantine regulations. Many of us believe that mandatory prison sentences for the owners and the immediate destruction of the offending animal are necessary in such circumstances. We must deter people and frighten them in such a way that they will not be tempted to break the law.
Many well-meaning and useful ideas have been put forward. These include the partitioning of many of our marinas, smaller harbours and large ports so that quarantine moorings are available. These are useful ideas, but they would be taken up only by the law-abiding. I am concerned that we are not doing enough to deter those who are quite willing to break the law with total disregard for the implications of their actions for our citizens.
This question does not affect only foreigners. Plenty of British people are prepared to take their pets on their boats with them when they go to France for the weekend. When they come back they evade the regulations rather than he parted from their pets by kennelling them. The social consequences of an outbreak of rabies are almost too horrible to contemplate for a pet-loving nation such as this. Those consequences would involve the muzzling of dogs and prohibition upon letting cats out at night. The consequences which would follow for those who break the regulations would be as likely to lead to social unrest as any other circumstances which it is possible to envisage.
It is clear from correspondence I have received from many parts of the country that there is widespread support for strong and urgent action. I have here a letter from a partnership of veterinary surgeons in Edinburgh, Ross, Venn and Rimer, who have indicated their support for the anti-rabies campaign and
would welcome any measures that will decrease the chances of rabies reaching Britain ".


They have the right idea in concentrating on prevention rather than cure.
The Government have tended to concentrate their efforts on the major ports, but I believe that the most likely place for an outbreak to occur is one of the small harbours which proliferate along the south coast of England. At the instigation of the President of the National Yacht Harbours Association, Mr. Little, I tabled a Question about a possible meeting between the association and the Ministry of Agriculture. It was surprising to note that no such contact had been established, but it was gratifying to note that as soon as my Question went down a meeting was arranged.
A parliamentary Answer gave those places where the quarantine regulations were broken last year, and it is significant that our major ports were prominent among them. Those statistics however did not include two specific instances, which must be typical of hundreds, and which were known to the managing director of the Lymington Yacht Haven in my constituency who quoted the cases in a recent letter to the Southern Evening Echo. One of the incidents referred to a foreigner leading his dog up Gosport High Street, and the other involved a sailor from a French minesweeper who allowed his dog free access to the shore at Cowes. In spite of what the Government may say, there are probably hundreds of occasions each month when the quarantine regulations are abused.
Is the Leader of the House satisfied that our posts abroad are doing all they can to make known to visitors to this country the rules, regulations and requirements governing the importation of animals into Britain? I ask this, because I discovered from another Written Reply that there were 103 contraventions of quarantine regulations at Heathrow Airport alone last year. Yet there were only two convictions. The other 101contraventions were described as technical.
Is insufficient information being given to people who come to this country with their pets? I asked the Prime Minister about this last week and I ask the Lord President today whether he is satisfied on this point. The husband of one of the two people who received heavy fines at Heathrow last week came to see me

and said that when he left Amman, despite contacting the airline office and the British Embassy in Amman, he was not given any information about the need for an import licence.
I also urge the Government to check loopholes in present regulations through Ireland and ask that urgent attention be given to the places where smuggling appears to be taking place almost openly. Dr. Cave writes to me from Canterbury:
I recently chanced to meet the General Manager of the Dover Harbour Board who had heard of my interest in the subject. I asked him, very much with my tongue in my cheek, what was the 'going rate' for smuggling pets into the U.K. and, without a moment's hesitation he told me £500.
This means that, so long as the offender is paid in advance, even the maximum court fine leaves him with a fat profit.
If that is true, it is a scandalous situation which must be looked into as a matter of urgency.
I have also received a letter from Mrs. Bullivant from Stowemarket who writes:
I came through Customs in Dover at approximately two o'clock in the morning. I followed a large American car through the `Nothing to Declare' exit before heading for London. At the motorway café I pulled in for a coffee. As I was leaving the café I noticed the American car parked close by. The driver and his wife were exercising a poodle dog. After the walk into the car park, they opened the boot of the car and lifted the dog into a basket. It was obvious that the dog had been brought into the country inside the boot of the car.
I am sorry if hon. Members find this subject boring or tedious, but it is a matter of real concern in my constituency. Vaccines are not readily available for people in this country who wish to take precautions. Mrs. O'Connell writes from Sutton Cold field:
I have three dogs and three cats, when I went to the vet, the other day and asked for injections for the animals mentioned he told me it is not possible to get an animal injected against rabies unless the animal concerned was being exported.
This is a wholly unsatisfactory situation and the Government must take urgent steps to make vaccines available to people in this country, particularly in the areas of greatest risk.
I also wish to draw attention to the lack of quarantine kennels. There are 50 in Great Britain, but only three to cover the counties of Hampshire, Devon, Dorset and Cornwall. Yet this


length of coastline is surely one of the most vulnerable places in the British Isles.
Our nation faces what is, in effect, an invasion. It would be unrealistic to suggest that the Ministry of Defence should be involved. But the latest vaccines, even if available, do not guarantee one against surviving the bite of a rabid animal. Death from rabies is one of the worst deaths known to man.
I apologise if I have wearied the House, but I believe this to be a subject of great importance and I hope that one of my hon. Friends will have the opportunity of saying more about it later.

5.44 p.m.

Mr. Robert Hughes: I shall not follow the remarks of the hon. Member for Christchurch and Lymington (Mr. Adley), but not because the subject is unimportant. He quoted a letter from someone who saw a dog being smuggled into this country in an American car. I hope that the writer immediately contacted the authorities with a view to prosecuting the smugglers and did not just write to the hon. Member. All hon. Members have received letters from people who have witnessed breaches of the law but have done nothing about it. They just expect us to tighten the regulations. I hope that the couple were taken to court as a result of being seen by the writer of that letter.
I wish to raise a matter of great importance to England, Scotland and Wales, but particularly to my own constituency—the inability of teachers leaving teacher-training colleges to find employment. This time last year, the Government and local authorities were having urgent consultations to see how teachers could be transferred or how newly-qualified teachers could be made available to the West of Scotland where there was a considerable shortage of teachers, with resulting part-time education.
Between 2,000 and 2,500 teachers leaving colleges will be unable to find work this year and demonstrations are taking place at all 10 colleges in Scotland against these difficulties. The situation has spread to England and, possibly, Wales where, in terms of numbers, it is even more serious.
The adoption by the Government of Red Book standards as an absolute maximum of the number of teachers which may be employed is difficult to understand. I come from a city with a long and successful record in education. Aberdeen has long been regarded throughout the United Kingdom as a pace-setter in educational standards and we have employed more teachers than the Red Book standard. We have argued the case with local ratepayers and said we were prepared to pay for it because we were providing a better education for working-class children and we needed an adequate number of dedicated staff.
The reorganisation of local government resulted in control of education being taken away from the City of Aberdeen, which had been Labour controlled virtually since the war, to a new regional authority which is Tory dominated. The new council fastened on the opportunity of public expenditure difficulties to cut back teacher supply. A total of 350 teachers will be "released"—to use the education authority's word—from the city's schools. They are not losing their jobs. They are being compulsorily transferred to surrounding areas. The arrangement is said to be voluntary, but in fact it is compulsory. It means that the pressure in the Aberdeen area to improve educational standards has received a great setback.
Had all the teachers coming out of training colleges been able to find jobs and had part-time education still existed in the West of Scotland, this situation could have been defended. I could have accepted that Aberdeen could not continue to be a pace-setter.
Socialism is a matter of priorities in different circumstances and where there is not much money around, I would be prepared to accept a standstill in order to allow less-privileged children in the West of Scotland to catch up. But that is not the position. There is an immense investment involved in the training of teachers and they are now coming out of colleges with little prospect of finding jobs. I am naturally concerned about newly-qualified teachers and young couples, but, although it is invidious to draw comparisons, I feel particularly sorry for mature students who were inveigled by a massive Government campaign into joining the special recruitment scheme. I shall mention three examples from the many I have


had from in and around my constituency of teachers facing particular difficulties. I shall not quote them by name as it would be invidious to do so.
My first example is a single woman aged 51 who left school at 15 with no formal qualifications. The job which she held for 10 years is no longer available to her. She cannot get a teaching job. Both her parents are in their 70s and infirm. They rely heavily on this individual to look after them. She writes:
I assumed that entry into the special recruitment scheme was the guarantee of a job at the end of teacher-training, otherwise I would not have left my own job to do it. I simply feel betrayed.
My second example concerns a gentleman aged 46. Again, he left school at 15 with no formal qualifications. He spent 22 years in retail management. He has two sons aged 16 and 14, and a daughter aged eight. He cannot move from Aberdeen to find another job, even if one were available, because his two sons are involved in "highers" and O-levels. As a result of the financial hardship which he and his family have had to undergo, even with the special recruitment scheme, he had to cash insurance policies to survive. He has no prospects of a job. What is he going to do?
My third example concerns a gentleman aged 32 who, again, left school at 15. He was a school technician before he joined the scheme. Last August he was given permission by the administrators of the special recruitment scheme to extend his course by one year to take an honours degree in history. He assumed that having done an extra year there would be a job available. He is now told that there is no job for him because history is one of the topics that is especially over-full because of the number of teachers trained in history. His present job prospects are pretty poor. Naturally, he feels very upset, and I cannot say that I blame him.
It is necessary that the Government should do something—I appreciate that they may not be able to cover everyone—for mature students who are not mobile. I have listened to the Government Front Bench saying in one statement after another that it is imperative in our public expenditure priorities that we make money available for investment.

We have made money available for investment in teacher-training, but the investment is going to waste. It must amount to millions of pounds throughout the country.
Surely education is an investment. If we are to provide people to undertake the new technologies, if we are to provide staff who are able to service industry and the social services, we need people with a good, sound basis of education. Therefore, education is an investment in itself. We may have difficulty in ensuring that public investment goes into the right quarters in private industry so as to get the best results, but education is an area in which we can use money for investment in the real sense.
I know that my right hon. Friend will say in reply that it so happens that the Red Book standards and Circular 819 fit with the amount of money available, and that the additional employment of teachers cannot be carried out unless more money is made available for education budgets in Scotland, England and Wales. But in my view the Government should make the money available at all times.
Heaven knows, I am the last person to defend the teaching profession. I spent a difficult period with it when I was a Minister. I blame it for the way in which it put working-class children at the head of the queue for part-time education when it was in dispute with the Government. However, each and every one of us knows that when public expenditure cuts begin to bite and there is a shortage of teachers and equipment, it is working-class areas and working-class children who have to carry the brunt of the burden.
We should be taking the opportunity that the present situation offers. We have the teachers. All right, the numbers are above the standards which we think reasonable and adequate—I accept that they are fairly reasonable and adequate—but we are losing a great opportunity for positive discrimination. We could be putting them into areas where help is needed—for example, the remedial sector and in-service training. We could be putting them into the areas where they could help to improve the quality of education.
We are losing on this investment in terms of manpower and the future of our


children. I am sure that the Government made very great heartburnings. It was something that I was unable to bear myself because I believed it quite wrong to take that course. I hope that the Government will take seriously to heart the damage that they are doing to children, education and this Government of ours.

5.56 p.m.

Mr. Hector Munro: I naturally support my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch and Lymington (Mr. Adley) in his important appeal to the Lord President to make a further statement on rabies before the Whitsun Adjournment. There are a thousand and one reasons for our not adjourning, ranging from the economic situation to fishing problems and child benefits, but I take up the matters that have been raised by the hon. Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hughes) regarding the serious problem facing newly qualified teachers in Scotland.
For years we have been conditioned to a shortage of teachers, but there has now been a reverse. The problem facing teachers leaving colleges of education this summer is appalling to say the least. We knew that by the mid-1970s the supply of teachers towards the Red Book standards would be much improved. That was brought out in the 1972 White Paper and the SED Report 1974, but, as the hon. Member for Aberdeen, North indicated, that was not always accepted by the teachers' associations or the local authorities. Although the numbers entering the colleges were cut back in 1973 and 1974 there was not a sufficient reduction. The cut-back in 1974 was only 250 primary entrants and 200 secondary entrants. If we allow for the three years for primary qualification and the additional one year for secondary qualification, the teachers who then entered the colleges are now looking for jobs.
It is intolerable—this is why the Government must consider the matter again most urgently—that the present situation has coincided with the Government's economic policy and severe restraints on local authorities. Before the House adjourns I should like to know the number of teaching posts that are being held back by local authorities because of financial restraint. We cannot expect

local authorities to over-recruit. That would be nonsensical. However, if they are keeping posts open because they have insufficient financial resources even to fill the schools to the Red Book standard, the Government have something to answer.
That also applies to the Government asking education authorities to be careful about expenditure. The Government are saying to authorities in Scotland "We shall give local authorities £1 million for school milk and £5 million for school meals". If that money had been channelled into the education authorities to pay teachers' salaries it would be a different kettle of fish. The Lord President must find a very good answer for the Government finding it more important to dish out £1 million on school milk and £5 million on school meals than to pay to employ teachers to look after our children in the schools.
Physical education teachers have suffered a severe penalty. Local authorities have decided to cut back on them more than on others. The Lord President, with advice from the Scottish Office, should let us know whether there has been a disproportionate reduction in posts available to PE teachers in Scotland.
As the hon. Member for Aberdeen, North indicated, all Scottish Members have had heartrending letters from students at colleges of education about the crisis affecting their careers. It is up to the Government, before we adjourn for Whitsun, to give some indication of what they propose to do. I know that the Under-Secretary of State met certain representatives of students last Friday. The House is entitled to know whether the Government have reached any decision on what they propose to do within the next few weeks. This is a matter of the greatest urgency. I look forward to hearing the Lord President's reply.

6.1 p.m.

Mr. Nigel Spearing: I do not think that the House should adjourn for the Whitsun Recess till we have heard something more about the Government's approach to the UNCTAD conference in Nairobi towards the end of this week. My right hon. Friend the Member for Lanark (Mrs. Hart) outlined the importance of this conference, not only to this country but to the world. We have been told how much we depend


on world trade. We all know the extent to which this country, unlike many others, is dependent on world trade. Therefore, world commodity prices and the way in which the world community is working towards some overall arrangement is of vital interest to everybody in the United Kingdom.
That matter has been recognised by the Government. That is why their present attitude is worrying and why they owe the House some explanation of their approach before the Recess.
The former Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Huyton (Sir H. Wilson), in his speech at the Heads of Government Meeting in Jamaica on 1st May last year—Command 6061—said:
All of us here have long recognised the need for economic interdependence in our trade and dealings with one another, and in the wider world. Over generations, failure to make this interdependence a reality has been the cause of great suffering, suffering above all for developing countries producing the food and raw materials the world needs, without a fair and assured return.
Indeed, there may be suffering not only for those countries, but for those which require the raw materials. So it was that, as appears on page 5, my right hon. Friend said:
What the British Government have in mind is that we set as our objective a general agreement on commodities, not only for ourselves but for the whole world.
Of course, it was not only the former Prime Minister who was associated with that statement, but the then Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, the present Prime Minister.
On those brave and forward-looking words the Commonwealth Prime Ministers set up an expert committee named after Mr. McIntyre, the chairman of that group. That committee produced a pamphlet, "Towards a New International Economic Order", which was published in August last year. That expert group from the Commonwealth countries, in paragraph 41, said:
We regard the proposed common fund as the most important element in the programme, and its establishment as essential if an integrated plan for commodities is to make a major impact.
The group met again in this country early this year. We had high hopes that the Commonwealth, with its unique

combination of developed and underdeveloped countries in the Third World, would have a major contribution to make to the UNCTAD conference. But, alas, nothing seems to have happened.
On 3rd May I asked the Minister for Overseas Development whether the Commonwealth Ministers going to UNCTAD would meet before the conference in Nairobi. The reply was:
There will not be any formal Commonwealth meeting to determine a joint Commonwealth approach prior to UNCTAD IV."—[Official Report, 3rd May 1976; Vol. 910, c. 831.]
I am afraid that little has come from the expert group which the former Prime Minister and the then Foreign Secretary so clearly launched. Very little was known about what the Government proposed to do. The Minister for Overseas Development was asked what the Government's approach to the UNCTAD conference would be, and he retreated to the extent of saying that the Secretary of State for Trade was in Brussels discussing the EEC proposals for UNCTAD IV. As my right hon. Friend has already said, the EEC proposals for UNCTAD IV, in so far as the Commission has a view, is regrettably, from my point of view at least, more radical than that of the Government. Indeed, the French, the Norwegians and the Netherlands have looked forward and given some kind of assent to a forward movement on the matter. That does not seem to be the Government's view.
The Secretary of State for Trade made a disappointing address in Nairobi a couple of weeks ago and then disappeared. My hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Overseas Development flew there yesterday or the day before. I do not think that this has been reported in the Press, but he is reported to us as having said that Britain had no theological objection to the common fund. My hon. Friend said that Britain wanted a programme for a commodity agreement and suggested a list of products commodity by commodity. I emphasise that the Government's representative said that Britain had no theological objection to the common fund.
I think that hon. Members will concede at once that the suggested form


of the common fund may not meet the objectives of the Government or of the Commonwealth expert group in every respect, but EEC and other countries have said that there must be a move in that direction. Subject to confirmation, I understand that Mexico, Pakistan, Kuwait, Indonesia, Iran and Zambia have said that there should be a move in that direction.
I am not asking the Government to say "Yes, we will go along with the blueprint presented by the UNCTAD secretariat in every detail." That would be asking too much. I am not asking them to say that the blueprint is right, even in principle, but let them say that movement in that direction is what is wanted, and let them, at the end of the conference, be seen to be among, not those countries which are holding back, but those which are looking forward. If we are to be proper members of the world community—we are one of the biggest trading nations in the world—we must be in the van of proper world community progress. It is on commodities that progress must be made.
Therefore, I hope that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House will tell us something more encouraging before we adjourn for the Whitsun Recess. I hope that he will tell us that the words spoken by my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth, North (Mr. Judd) will not be the Government's last words in Nairobi and that, when the groups come together at the end of the week, the United Kingdom will be seen to be moving in the same direction as the rest of the Commonwealth.
There was a joke going the rounds, when the right hon. Member for Sidcup (Mr. Heath) was Prime Minister and had that disastrous episode in Singapore, that the Commonwealth might expel the United Kingdom. It certainly looks as though the Commonwealth has gone a great deal further than the United Kingdom regarding the common fund. I hope that at the end of the week the Government will be seen not to be behind the rest of the Commonwealth on this issue. We certainly appear to be behind many EEC countries. Let us not be behind both the EEC and the Commonwealth. If the Government go on as they are, they will be seen in that way by world opinion. It will be very bad

for us if world opinion sees the United Kingdom to be behind on these very important issues.
My hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Overseas Development said that Britain had no theological objection to the common fund. Therefore, in a theological sense it was implied that we could look forward to
the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
Obviously, the Prime Minister may have taken a different view at Kingston last year. It is not a question of things not seen, because on the subject of the common fund the Government should not merely give the impression that we have no theological objection, but should say that they are actively moving towards such a concept. If that happens, we can seek to work out the right scheme.

6.10 p.m.

Mr. David Price: I shall not seek to take up the remarks of the hon. Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing), tempted though I am to do so, because I appreciate that many hon. Members wish to take part in this short debate.
I wish to deal with one or two of the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch and Lymington (Mr. Adley). In reverting to the problem of rabies, I know that it will not be in order for me to raise many of the wider considerations. However, there are a few narrow considerations that require a reply before the House adjourns for Whitsun.
I wish first to deal with a procedural matter. For sometime I have pressed the Leader of the House to establish a Select Committee to examine this subject. Indeed, I tabled Early-Day Motion No. 382 on the subject, and at business questions last Thursday the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House told me that the Government were eager to do everything possible about the matter but added:
Whether a Select Committee is the best way of dealing with the subject is another question, on which I have nothing to say now. I shall discuss the matter with my right hon. Friend."—[Official Report, 20th May 1976; Vol. 911, c. 1725.]
I hope that when the Leader of the House replies this evening he will be able to give me some more information. It


is true that the Trade and Industry Sub-Committee of the Expenditure Committee is considering taking up the topic as its next subject of inquiry, but it has not said definitely that it will do so.
Because of the widespread interest in this matter in all quarters of the House, I consider that the establishment of a Select Committee is the appropriate procedural way of advancing the matter rather than that we should rely on ministerial statements and exchanges at Question Time. A Select Committee can expose expert witnesses to searching examination in public. It is becoming more and more clear to those of us who have examined the subject that there are problems that need exposure. In general debate, however, the views of experts are filtered through departmental briefs and often we are not able to obtain proper answers. This is becoming a habit, and, indeed, many so-called ministerial replies to debates are not replies at all. I ask the Leader of the House to give me a reply on this matter today.
Secondly, I wish to refer to the question of the co-ordination of our defences against rabies—now not in the future. I do not wish to refer to any possible change in legislation. I wish, instead, to deal with what can be done now, this coming weekend, about the situation.
I wish to draw attention to an excellent memorandum circulated to hon. Members by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food on the subject of rabies. I commend the Ministry on that document. It throws up a number of weaknesses in the present situation. In paragraph 18 of the memorandum, the Ministry says:
Local authorities are the enforcement authorities, through their diseases of animals inspectors. They are fully aware of their responsibilities.
I am sure that they are aware of their responsibilities, but clearly they have neither the resources nor the legislative powers to fulfil those responsibilities. The Hampshire County Council takes the problem very seriously, and has put forward a number of proposals to the Government both directly and also through the Association of County Councils. However, the county council has received no more than a sympathetic reply, with no indication of any Government action. Therefore, as we go off this weekend, we

must realise that although local authorities are the enforcement agencies, they take the view that their enforcement powers are inadequate.
I also wish to refer to the risk from small boats, which again is dealt with in the memorandum to which I have referred. Paragraph 10 of the memorandum says:
The threat, therefore, as it always has been, is through the illegally-landed animal which is most likely to arrive by commercial transport or private vessel. The greatest risk is with small boats and yachts: and the risk increases during the summer holiday season.
That is why I seek to raise this matter now.
In paragraph 31 the memorandum makes the following point:
Although recognised ports and harbours are covered, Her Majesty's Customs can never hope to have sufficient stock available to keep constant watch over every point on the coast where yachts can berth. It would clearly be unrealistic to attempt such comprehensive surveillance.
The Leader of the House knows that many Opposition Members represent South Coast constituencies and we know that these practices occur. Many of us have evidence from our constituents—circumstantial evidence—that these things are happening. I wish to put that point strongly to the Leader of the House.
Furthermore, responsibility is now increasingly being placed on local authorities and on voluntary organisations. This points to the importance of the six-point scheme put forward by the National Yacht Harbour Association, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch and Lymington referred. I tabled a Question on this subject yesterday. I shall not read out the whole reply, but the Minister of State for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food said that he could not meet at present any of the points put to him by the National Yacht Harbour Association. He added:
…but in the meantime we are encouraging the association and other appropriate organisations and authorities to take what steps they can locally to prevent the illegal landing of animals.—[Official Report, 24th May 1976; Vol. 912, c. 55].
The House will have heard my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch and Lymington recount his experience of having made inquiries about these matters in his area. I have a harbour in my constituency, Hamble, where there could


be a similar problem. This is the reason why I raise this important point, before we go off for the Whitsun Recess. This is a time of the year when a large number of boats come into our ports from the Continent.
There is also a popular view that the main risk of rabies comes from dogs. We know from veterinary authorities that this is not true. I wish to quote from an excellent little pamphlet produced by the Office of Health Economics on the subject of rabies. I commend the booklet to the Leader of the House to read over Whitsun. It is short and he will find that it contains valuable information.
The pamphlet contains a table dealing with animal susceptibility to rabies, and hence the ability to be a successful vector. It is extremely high in foxes, coyotes, jackals and wolves, kangaroo rats, cotton rats and common field voles. The list of animals with a high susceptibility to rabies is headed by hamsters and includes skunks, racoons, domestic cats, bats, bobcats, mongooses and guinea-pigs.
I wish to draw attention to the appearance of hamsters in that list because we all know that many children keep them as pets. I suspect that many hamsters go on board boats with children on family outings. It appears from the list that cats have a higher susceptibility to rabies than do dogs. I do not wish to get involved in any controversy between dogs and cats, but I quote this example to counter the general feeling that dogs are the principal vectors.
In the third category of susceptibility only are dogs, together with sheep, goats, horses and non-human primates. So again it is not just dogs about which we should be concerned. It is important for this to be realised.
That brings me, again in terms of urgency, to ask what surveys have been made by the Ministry of our wildlife population and what measures it has in preparation for fulfilling its current policy, which is a slaughter policy. This is the policy recommended by the World Health Organisation for countries which are rabies-free. It is not necessarily the right policy for countries in which rabies is endemic.
I ask the House to consider this. As I understand it, it is the Government's policy that, if there is an outbreak of

rabies discovered anywhere in our wildlife population, a zone of five miles will be declared a rabies area and the wildlife in that area will be slaughtered. Five miles does not sound very much. However, it involves clearing more than 50,000 acres.
Therefore, I ask two questions. What surveys have the Government made of the wildlife population, especially in the South of England where prima facie there is a much more likely chance of rabies being introduced because of its proximity to the Continent of Europe? Secondly, have the Government made any calculation of how many people and what equipment would be required to clear such an area, and from where are these people to come? Clearly, they can only come from volunteers.
In this respect, I want to read to the House a short extract from a letter from a distinguished constituent of mine who has great experience of rabies in Asia and who writes:
My concern is for more information on what is being done to contain and eradicate the disease, in the unfortunate circumstances of an eruption, in this country. I have been very worried at the apparent lack of honest endeavour in this field. For the past eighteen months to two years, my experience has been that when I ask a question on this aspect my informant has dried up, or has used such vague phrases as. 'I'm afraid that the consequences to wildlife will be tragic.' My own opinion is that, if they do not start making suitable preparations forthwith, the consequences to human beings will be no less tragic. We have, mercifully, been free from an infection to date, but we must not push our luck too far.
That seems to sum up neatly that what is worrying a great many people is that we may be in danger of pushing our luck too far.
Those are some of the immediate issues in the continuing, growing problem of how to deal with the threat of rabies to this country. There are many more wider ones which it would not be appropriate to go into today. But I put these matters to the Leader of the House. I believe that we must redouble our efforts within the current policy to maintain our 70-yearold record of being rabies-free.
To those of us who represent constituents on the South Coast, with small boats going to and from the Continent in the summer months, these are immediate matters concerning our defences. I hope


that I have given the House some reasons why we must have a reply from the Leader of the House before we pass this motion.

6.24 p.m.

Mr. Robin F. Cook: I wish to return to the matter already raised by two hon. Members, namely, the crisis situation faced at the moment in teacher recruitment and supply.
It is a convention in this debate that hon. Members seek to show why it would be quite impossible for the House to rise for the recess until the issues with which they are dealing are resolved. For the most part it is a convention. It is a convention of which I have taken advantage in the past.
But I can say with genuine feeling that the several thousand students currently in occupation of colleges of education, especially the several hundred squatting in those colleges of education and sleeping overnight on the floors of those colleges, would find it hard to understand if we rose for a week's recess without first attempting to find a solution to the problems which have caused that occupation. I speak about these matters with particular concern since my constituency includes Moray House College, which is one of the two largest colleges of education in Scotland and which was the first college to be occupied and from which the present wave of occupations spread.
I shall confine my remarks purely to the Scottish situation but, before doing so, I recognise that there is a parallel problem in England. Indeed, in many respects the problem in England is more severe. I am aware from a parliamentary answer given earlier this month that 25 per cent. of those who qualified as teachers last year are still looking for posts and that only 10 per cent. of those who qualified this year have already succeeded in obtaining posts. If anything, the situation in England is more severe than the problem we face in Scotland. Nevertheless, I confine myself to Scotland because it is the area which I know best.
In Scotland, 5,500 students will qualify this year. Of those, between 2,000 and 2,500 are unlikely to find posts in any

education authority in Scotland. My hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hughes) indicated the bitterness felt by many of those who find themselves in this position. It is a bitterness which I have sensed and experienced in meeting some of the students affected. The House has to recognise that most of those who are qualifying this year were led to believe that, if they entered teacher-training, there would be posts for them at the end of the qualifying period. At no stage in the prolonged and intensive training that they have had in the past three years was any warning given to them that they would meet this situation when they qualified. To many of them it appears a grossly unjust situation in which the Government have betrayed the trust which they placed in the system when they first enrolled as student teachers.
But not all the letters that I have received in the past two or three weeks have come from those who are themselves students. I have received letters from constituents who are in no way connected with the college of education and who write to me to convey not bitterness but sheer incomprehension at the waste of investment that the situation represents.
It costs an average of £7,000 to put a student through a teacher-training college. If we are left at the end of the day with a situation in which there are 2,000 graduates unemployed, which is the inside estimate, that represents a lost investment of no less than £14 million. I cannot think of any other issue in which, if the Government were found to have invested £14 million over a period as recent as the past two or three years and then proposed to make no use of the results of that investment, there would not have been complete uproar in this Chamber and serious criticism of a Government who had created this situation.
We have been informed that the reason for the situation is the decline in the birth rate in Scotland over the past decade. If that was the sole reason for the reduction in teacher recruitment this year, one could only say that those responsible for preparing the level of intake two and three years ago—and I make no party political point, because I include all those in the Scottish Education Department at the time—must be guilty of the most gross incompetence for


failing to match the intake to the required output by something like a 50 per cent. margin.
But, of course, that is not the sole reason why we are in this position today. If it were not for the restraints on public expenditure and the policy of cutting back on public expenditure, we should not now face the crisis that we face of unemployed qualified student-teachers.
There are a number of ways in which we could profitably absorb the surplus that we face. I wish to propose four ways in which the surplus could be absorbed.
First, we could improve the staffing ratios beyond the Red Book standard. It is important to remember that the Red Book was conceived as a device to shift teachers from areas of the country which were in surplus to areas of the country which were in deficit. It was conceived, in other words, as a way of rationing teacher supply at a time of shortage. Its retention now means that we are using that same device to keep down public expenditure in a time of surplus, and this is quite unacceptable.
About a fortnight ago, a committee of the Head Teachers Association went on record as saying that unless the Red Book standards were exceeded by 6 per cent., the quality of education would be reduced seriously and that those who would suffer most were the less academic pupils. The figure of 6 per cent. is a particularly convenient one because 6 per cent. above Red Book standards would find posts for all the 2,000 students coming out of colleges who are unlikely to find posts.
We could also usefully expand the remedial staff in our schools in Scotland. Anyone with even a nodding acquaintance of Scottish education is aware of the grave shortage of remedial teachers. It is a curious fact that Glasgow, which is the most deprived area in Scotland, has the fewest remedial teachers per head of any area in Scotland. This is a situation which points to a fundamental and acute shortage of teachers for these posts.
Thirdly, I think we can look to other areas of education where we have hitherto been unable to make the provision which one might have wished but where the surplus of graduates now gives us an opportunity to expand. I refer to only

one, the area of adult education. It is now well over a year since the Alexander Report was published, and in that year it appears to have done nothing but lie on the shelf and gather dust and mould.
The Alexander Report is particularly relevant to this debate because it proposed an expansion of 200 in adult education staff. I am very much in touch with my former colleagues in adult education, and my subjective experience is that in the 18 months since this report was published there has not been one additional post created in adult education in Scotland. Of course, 200 more posts would not solve the problem, but they would at least show the students that we are using the surplus to expand in the areas where there is a need rather than simply looking upon it as an opportunity to cut back on public expenditure.
However, all those methods of absorbing the surplus are lost to us so long as we maintain the policy of cutting back on public expenditure. They are lost to us unless we are prepared to go back over the rate support grant Order of last year, which was particularly responsible for the crisis which we now face. It has been a remarkable feature of the past fortnight that many of those who were foremost in demanding cuts in public expenditure in December have been the very first to run away when faced with the consequences of those cuts.
I refer to the hon. Member for Dumfries (Mr. Monro) who has already addressed the House on this matter. I am sorry he is not present to hear what I shall say, but, unfortunately he left the Chamber almost the instant he ceased speaking. He spoke in the debate on the rate support grant Order last December and said:
I am the first to agree with the right hon. Gentleman's strictures on the importance of controlling local authority expenditure. Such expenditure must be kept to a minimum in the coming year.
Later he said:
…it is right that restraint should be the order of the day."—[Official Report, 15th December, 1975; Vol. 902, c. 1120–1].
It is not open to those who have demanded cuts in public expenditure and who were prepared to support the low level of the rate support grant Order now


to turn round and criticise the Government for the consequences of those cuts.

Mr. George Younger: The hon. Gentleman is being extremely unfair, I am sure unintentionally, to my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries (Mr. Monro) because he particularly made the point in his speech a few moments ago that he was not suggesting any increase. He suggested some ways in which this money could be found to get the teachers jobs.

Mr. Cook: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman must relate his speech to why we should or should not adjourn. He cannot simply make the case that he would make in a general debate.

Mr. Cook: I am very sensitive to that, Mr. Speaker, and I shall be concluding my remarks in a moment. If I may stretch your indulgence and reply to the hon. Gentleman's intervention, I would say that if the Member for Dumfries were to visit Moray House College and explain to the students that his way of finding money to employ them is by cutting school milk and raising school meals charges, he would receive a very hot reception. The only thing I did which the hon. Gentleman thinks is unfair was to quote from the speech of the hon. Member for Dumfries in support of the rate support grant Order which has created the very situation which we now face.
I would emphasise the urgency of the situation we face partly because of the occupation of the colleges themselves. I understand that if the occupations continue much longer, there will be serious disruption to the intake for next autumn. It is urgent that we find a solution. It is even more urgent because of the distress caused to those who may find that there are no posts for them. This distress is increased because of the injustice of the feeling that it is their year and their year only which has to bear the brunt of the falling birth rate over 10 years, and two years of cuts in public expenditure. I therefore hope that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House will bring all the pressure he can to bear on his colleagues in the Government to find a solution to this problem before the House rises for the Whitsun Recess.

6.35 p.m.

Mr. Douglas Henderson: In following the hon. Member for Edinburgh, Central (Mr. Cook) I would echo his view made that the House ought to debate the position in education colleges in Scotland before we rise for the recess. At the very least, we ought to have an authoritative statement from the right hon. Gentleman the Lord President before this debate is concluded.
I will not involve myself in the dispute between the hon. Member for Dumfries (Mr. Monro) and the hon. Member for Edinburgh, Central, but it should be remembered that it is the latter's own Government who are responsible for this situation. We want to know what the Government intend to do. It makes no sense to anyone in Scotland, or anyone in the civilised world, to see overcrowded classes without a teacher in the classroom and, at the same time, people qualifying this year from the training colleges and signing on at the labour exchanges.
Whatever the reason, a solution must be found. It does not make sense in anyone's language and I think we are entitled to hear from the right hon. Gentleman. It is particularly appropriate, since he was a former Secretary of State for Employment, that he should speak on this matter today and give not only the student-teachers who are taking their exams next week but the parents of children in schools in Scotland a clear indication of what the Government intend to do about this extraordinary and bizarre situation before the House rises for the Whitsun Recess. That is the first subject which I believe the House should consider before we rise for the recess.
The second, on which I want to speak, concerns the fishing industry. It is amazing that the most important international conference which has ever taken place on the fishing industry—the Law of the Sea Conference—which wound up its session on Friday 13th April, should have done so without a statement from any Minister to this House. There has been no statement whatever about what conclusions the Government have formed as a result of that conference, or what proposals they intend to put forward when the conference reconvenes in New


York on 2nd August for what is optimistically felt to be the final session.
The United Nations Press notice announcing the end of the conference said:
Its major result was a revised four-part text intended to be used as the basis for further negotiations for the projected sea law convention.
This was the same Press notice issued after the first session two years ago in Caracas and the second session which took place last year in Vienna.
It is not good enough for the Government to treat the House in this way, sending its Ministers to this conference and giving us no information and no statement on their assessment of what has been achieved, or what has not been achieved, or what they intend to do next. It is important in this fast-moving situation for the Government to be giving some guidance to the House about what is happening at this conference. They ought to be giving a clear statement to the industry throughout the country. Events make it impossible for the Government to sit back in a policy of masterly inactivity, which seems to have been their posture over the fishing industry for the past two years.
President Ford has signed a Bill, which has passed through the United States Congress, unilaterally extending the fishing limits of the United States to 200 miles from 1st March next year. We have always been told that we are not in favour of unilateral action and that we do not believe that Iceland has a right to protect her interests. We think that everything should be done on the basis of international law.
I have not heard one word of condemnation from either the Government or the Conservative Opposition about America's position. No one in this House is rising to denounce the United States although we have denounced Iceland. Is it perhaps because America is a large country and Iceland is small? This little bunch of frigates which are sent to terrorise the Icelandic fleet would look puny and ridiculous if put up against the United States fleet.
The situation has changed and is changing and we need an up-to-date statement of Government policy. The Government so far have resisted all demands for a

White Paper on the future of the fishing industry, on the ground that there is no international certainty. Surely the Government could help by putting forward a reasonable case setting out the interests of our industry as a basis for negotiations with other countries.
In that context, we have had no statement other than the flimsiest and most irresponsible comments from people like the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, who seems virtually to have surrendered our negotiating position in the Common Market before we even start. I suspect that the Lord President's views on the Common Market are somewhat similar to mine and that he may have some sympathy with the view that it is high time we took a far more aggressive attitude in pursuit of our interests and rights than the Minister of State has taken.
Fishing is not a party matter. I therefore have a suggestion which I hope the right hon. Gentleman will consider sympathetically. I and my hon. Friends—this might be true of other parties as well—would be willing to join the Government in an all-party delegation to Brussels to impress upon the EEC countries the strength of feeling in this House and in the country about a fair deal for our fishermen. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will consider that.
It is clear to the fishing industry that the Government's approach to date in the EEC and the Law of the Sea Conference has been weak and without clear objective or political will. We make this offer to see whether on that united basis we could achieve the deal for our fishermen which they deserve but which under the present negotiating conditions they seem unlikely to achieve.

6.42 p.m.

Mr. John Stonehouse: It will be within your recollection, Mr. Speaker, that on 13th April I spoke in the debate on the Easter Adjournment about a number of subjects. It will be a relief to you and no doubt to the House that I do not intend to refer to any of them again. I simply hope that the House will take them as read. They are still subjects about which I feel deeply concerned and about which I think the House should concern itself rather than adjourning for Whitsun. It is important


that at some stage the House turns its attention to those subjects.
The subject to which I want to refer in this debate is pyramid selling, which has been a matter of great concern to thousands of ordinary people who have been drawn into a serious confidence trick, brought about by agents of secondary banks which have persuaded people to part with their lifelong savings in the interests of a spurious scheme. I should like to refer to the example of one of my constituents, a Mr. Gyasi-Kour, of Thorpe Road, Walsall, who was persuaded to invest—2,500 as a contribution to participating in a pyramid selling scheme launched by an organisation called Holiday Magic of Great Britain.
As a result of the complete failure of the scheme, as put forward to my constituent, he was unable to meet the repayments on those loans. The loan had been obtained to finance the investment from the Hodge Group of Cardiff, which had advanced money against the security of my constituent's house. When he was unable to repay the loan, pressure was put on him and arrangements were made by an agent for it to be re-financed by a secondary bank called Cedar Holdings. With the rolled-up interest involved in the loan, my constituent became liable to repay£3,500. Over the course of time—only about three years were involved—as a result of totting up and other agents becoming involved, my constituent's liability has grown to over £13,000.
My constituent is an immigrant who was led into an investment because he had been told that it was a worthwhile scheme. His example can be multiplied many thousands of times. Indeed, an organisation has been set up by the people affected by this confidence trick which has been able to present a great deal of sworn testimony about the effect that this pyramid selling organisation has had on the lives of ordinary people who have been persuaded to enter into commitments beyond their resources. As a result of the rolled-up interest and other charges which have been brought into a deal to which they have signed away their lives, they have incurred enormous burdens and great anguish.
I have a list of people—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I do not wish to interrupt the flow of the right hon. Gentleman's argument, but he must relate it to the adjournment debate. He will understand that.

Mr. Stonehouse: I hope that we shall have a statement about the matter from responsible Ministers before we rise for the recess, because the practice is causing much anguish. The delay, if we have to wait until we return, will cause even more anguish to my constituent and all the others affected. There has been a suggestion, which Ministers should take seriously, that a fund should be established, perhaps under the responsibility of the Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection, to meet the liabilities with which my constituent and others have been persuaded to burden themselves.
The Government must accept some responsibility. They have, after all, accepted responsibility for the secondary banks themselves. The bank involved in this exercise, Cedar Holdings, has itself been assisted by the Bank of England Lifeboat Committee which was provided with about £1,200 million from the Bank of England and the joint stock banks. That is the sort of sum which can be made available to save secondary banks which have run into difficulties through over-extending themselves by lending money for property development and similar schemes.
But in this case, thousands of ordinary citizens have been persuaded to part with their lifelong savings or to mortgage their houses to obtain cash to put into a spurious pyramid selling scheme. They now find that there is no Government agency available to assist them. If it is worth while for the Government, the Bank of England and the joint stock banks to set up the Lifeboat Committee to assist secondary banks on the point of collapse, it is very important that something be done to assist those ordinary people who have been affected by the pyramid selling scandal.
I hope that the Government will not allow the House to go for the Whitsun Recess until they have made a clear announcement that they intend to set up a full inquiry into the whole operation of these pyramid selling organisations and


to set up a fund to assist ordinary people who have been affected by them.

6.50 p.m.

Mr. Norman Buchan: I had not intended to follow the right hon. Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Stonehouse), with his expertise on the subject of spurious schemes, but I must say I have received in recent days a list of those bodies due to the fact that I was one of the 200 hon. Members who signed the motion in relation to Bangladesh concerning people who are now finding themselves in extreme difficulty; so I am glad that we have an authority helping us here in the House today.
I am concerned that we should have, before the House adjourns, a statement on the position of Scottish education. I am not alone in that for other hon. Members who have already spoken have stressed the importance of this subject. I want first to stress that I completely accept that the present crisis is not purely Scottish, and I shall deal with some of the diversionary attempts to suggest that it is at present only a Scottish crisis.
I stress that I do not believe that it is a crisis totally of the Government's making. The demographic change, with a rapid decline in the child population, which is a factor in the situation, was known between 1962 and 1972. There was a decline in the birth rate of the order of 25 per cent., twice as great as the fall in the birth rate in England and Wales. Secondly, those children at present entering school were already born at the time decisions were being made on teacher recruitment. Therefore, to that extent some responsibility at least must be borne by the preceding Tory Government.
I also accept, however, that many of us said that we were not necessarily prepared to accept some of the teacher ratios worked out. We believe in education and consider that it is a good thing and I accept that if any attempt had been made at that time to cut back teacher recruitment, it might well have been resisted; so I accept that there was an element, not necessarily of cowardice, but of political consideration.
Probably the only opportunity when the Government could have dealt with this matter was in 1975. They could not have done so early in 1974 because they were

not then in power, but later in 1974 they inherited the programme. The Government could have acted in 1975 in view of the demographic change but at that time teacher-pupil ratios were being negotiated and it would have been impossible then to effect a reduction in the teacher intake. That would not have dealt with the immediate crisis of an output of something like 5,500 students with the possibility of 2,000 of them not being employed.
While accepting, therefore, that it is not entirely the Government who are responsible for the situation we face, I must say that nevertheless it is the Government's responsibility to deal with that situation. If one accepts the Government's economic strategy and cuts in public expenditure, one is immediately in difficulty. If one does not accept the Government's strategy but wants even further cuts in public expenditure, one is in even greater difficulty, because the Tories, as always, continue their self-appointed task of attacking public expenditure cuts in general while protesting against every single cut in particular.
This particular form of hypocrisy we have seen brought to a fine art by the Tory Party in recent months. This is something on which I want the Government to make a statement this week. I want it made clear, in a way which will expose this hypocrisy, that they will not effect economies through cuts in school milk and school dinners, which will mean depriving the poorest section of the community—because by definition it is the poorest section of the community who are affected. Hon. Gentlemen opposite are serving the class struggle in their own way while apparently advocating an improvement in educational conditions.

Mr. Younger: The hon. Gentleman should know the rules regarding school milk and school meals better than that. The poor do not pay one penny for them: they are given free. Those who pay are by definition those on average earnings of around £60 per week, so will the hon. Gentleman please not talk nonsense?

Mr. Buchan: The hon. Gentleman should know his constituents and other people better. He should know that many people who should be getting free school dinners do not apply for them because of the sense of shame they have in applying for benefits which are due


to them, a sense which is deliberately inculcated by the Tory Party.

Mr. Speaker: I am obviously trying to allow the maximum latitude, but hon. Members must relate the argument to the Adjournment debate. At least if the hon. Gentleman does so occasionally it will make us feel respectable.

Mr. Buchan: I missed your last two words, Mr. Speaker, but we are probably in agreement. I was about to suggest that that was the kind of statement we should expect from the Minister before adjourning, and I was suggesting words that he might want to use.
Secondly, we have to consider the suggestion that in some ways the Scottish situation is worse than the English situation and I hope that when the Minister makes a statement, as I trust he will before the recess, he will deal with that. Figures were published at the beginning of last week suggesting that Scotland was bearing 39 per cent. of the educational cuts. I can think of no stronger argument for the Minister and saying "We are going to recruit all these teachers awaiting jobs" than the arithmetical illiteracy shown by those figures. They were wrong in method and in arithmetic. The figure of 39 per cent. should be only 33 per cent.
I hate to mention this, but in actual terms Scotland is doing rather better in relation to cuts than is England. Over the next three years, on this programme which is the only method we can use, the proportionate cuts in Scotland are to be 6·2 per cent. in 1976–77, 10·3 per cent. in 1977–78, and 7·2 per cent. in 1978–79, an average of 7·9 per cent. of the United Kingdom total. I accept that Scotland is starting from a higher base. The problem in trying to make a comparison with Scottish education is that, in truth, we have been doing better, and we are continuing to do better proportionately under the current programme. On the base line we in Scotland are to receive about 12·6 per cent. of the education expenditure, as opposed to a proportionate expenditure of 10·1 per cent. There again, the figures and the methods are totally wrong.
This illustrates the need for the Minister to make a statement on the improvement in Scottish education, because in

its figures the Scottish National Party forgot that the entire expenditure on Scottish universities came out of the English and Welsh total, since this is paid by the Department of Education and Science in England and Wales. So the illiteracy of the SNP is reinforced by its ignorance of the fact that the universities were paid for out of the English and Welsh provision. This would have meant immediately another £55 million of expenditure in Scotland, which wipes out the gap. There can be no withdrawal from that position. The figures have been exposed and a party which operates on distortion and lies must at some point come face to face with reality. That dispenses with the Tory argument. The false diversion of the SNP has been dealt with by the students who, as the Chrysler workers did, are creating a unity between the students of Scotland and England, recognising that this is a common fight. They will not be diverted by false, lying figures.
The Minister must deal with these problems. It is not enough to say that the Tories are wrong in their analysis and that the SNP is wrong in its figures and methods. Although the Government are not responsible for this situation, it is their responsibility to solve it.
Two possibilities are open. The Tories and the SNP must accept the Socialist economic strategy, which rejects the present statutory basis of public expenditure cuts, which imposes exchange controls and import controls to deal with the balance of payments, which deals with the imbalance of wealth by bringing in a wealth tax in the interests of the poorer people, which deals with the immediate problem of inflation by making sharper price restrictions, which deals with the existing financial and economic problems by a heavier rate of taxation on incomes of £10,000 and over, with a freeze on increases and deals with attempts to shift capital from the public expenditure sector to the private manufacturing sector by taking control of the shift of capital. That is what is lacking in the Government's economic approach.
The Opposition must either accept that strategy or take another approach. They cannot at the same time reject that strategy and demand the restoration of public expenditure cuts, the recruitment of more teachers and everything else,


unless they are prepared to campaign for increased rates and taxes. If the SNP and the Tories reject the Socialist strategy, the corollary is that they must have the political courage to campaign for increased rates and taxes to show their bona fides in arguing for the recruitment of extra teachers. There is no other way.
That is the kind of statement we want the Minister to make tomorrow or on Thursday. We want him to say that the Government will ignore the blandishments of one side and the hypocrisy, distortions and lies of the other. We want the Minister to say that the Government will provide money to enable teachers to be recruited as a major investment to reequip the Scottish economy and the people of Scotland for the tasks that lie ahead.

7.3 p.m.

Mr. James Molyneaux: I am sure that the House, aware as it is of the murderous campaign being conducted in Northern Ireland, will understand my reasons for suggesting that the House should not adjourn without considering what is being done and remains to be done before it re-assembles on 7th June. Nothing would be worse than to give the impression that the Government were marking time, that they had arrived at the point which was described by a Minister in a former administration as reaching an acceptable level of violence.
For people in many areas there is a desperate, even a deadly, urgency to beat down the terrorists, using every weapon and instrument which the State can provide and implement. As an ex-Service man, I have always expressed admiration for the Army in all that it has done in support of the civil power. It is no reversal of that position to say that I agree with the strategy of the Secretary of State and the Government in seeking to concentrate the Army in those areas and one those tasks for which it is equipped and with which it is trained to cope.
In areas—and there are many—where the civil power is in a position to stand on its own feet, there is no valid reason for the retention of the Army simply for the sake of appearances. I strongly support suggestions that the Ulster

Defence Regiment should be expanded with all possible speed. The Ulster Defence Regiment is destined to play a very important rôle—perhaps the key rôle—in the coming months and years. For far too long its recruitment and even its deployment have been influenced by reason of its composition. While we all regret that Catholics have not found it possible to join—and in many cases have not found it possible to remain members of—the force, it would be foolish to waste an effective force in the vain hope that if we take a little time the conditions affecting recruitment will be transformed overnight, because they will not.
The Ulster Defence Regiment must be unfettered and allowed to play its full part, a part for which it is ideally suited, in bringing about a return to normality. I trust that we are now overcoming the reluctance to establish full-time formations of the Ulster Defence Regiment. Before we return from the recess, I hope that some progress will be made in this direction.
I acknowledge that in time past part-time members of the force have done an excellent job. But they all have another job, that of earning their daily bread. On the other hand, the gunmen are under no such constraints. The majority are doing very nicely on State benefits, the proceeds of bank raids and a wide assortment of rackets. They are not tied to hours of work and are free to operate and strike at times of their own choosing.
If the UDR is to complement the work of the Royal Ulster Constabulary, it must have considerable full-time strength. Meaningful co-operation between the two forces can come about only if each force can count on the round-the-clock readiness and availability of the other.
We have all been horrified by the murder of members of the RUC and the RUC Reserve in recent days. Their assassins have given a fair taste of what would be in store if the Provisional IRA were to achieve its aim of a united Irish Republic in which it would inevitably become the dominant force.
It is a great mistake to imagine that these attacks on the RUC result from proposals to establish what has been referred to as the primacy of the police. I do not subscribe to that view. The


real reason is that the police represent authority. They are, therefore, unacceptable in certain Republican areas in Northern Ireland. They always will be. So would any force which represents authority and, by implication, challenges the domination by whatever branch of the IRA happens to be in possession of those areas. Those of us who have seen these forces at work within the various branches of the terrorist organisations know only too well just how uncomfortable this state of affairs can be for the unfortunate people who have to reside in those areas.
In the days before we meet again trust that the Government will not be deterred from pushing ahead with their plans for strengthening the RUC by every possible means. It is important for Parliament and every person in Northern Ireland to convince the RUC that it will have the backing which, unfortunately, was withheld from it in earlier times. In that, we have been greatly encouraged by the reply of the Secretary of State for Defence to the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell). He said:
I read with great interest the report of his speech in the Army debate. We are not at variance on the points he made. It is absolutely essential that we should step up the role of the RUC and also try to recruit more to the UDR. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland is giving consideration to the point that the right hon. Gentleman made about more Regulars in the UDR."—[Official Report, 11th May 1976; Vol. 911, c. 204.]
That statement is probably one of the most encouraging which we have yet heard in the House.
I often wonder what is passing through the minds of the so-called leaders of the Provisional IRA at this time. I have never subscribed to the belief that their campaign is one of mindless murder. In my maiden speech in the House I said that the directing brains behind the unrest were far from aimless. They and those para-political groups which supported them then, and have at intervals supported them since, have achieved the exact opposite of what they intended. There is no doubt that Northern Ireland is now more securely part of the United Kingdom than it ever was. One must then ask the leaders of the IRA—"Was it necessary to kill and injure thousands

of innocent people? "One can understand the cause of the tensions and strains in the ranks of those who direct the dastardly deeds of the IRA terrorists, for even political gangsters must have some end in view. Even they must have moments of doubt as they contemplate, not only their lack of progress, but a movement in the opposite direction.
While we cannot be expected to fathom the workings of their distorted minds, we can do something to influence them. For example, we can stop talking to them and their allies and we can increase the deterrents and show more sympathy for the young soldier who gets caught up in an incident and is then treated as a criminal of sorts. Before the recess the House has a duty to make it clear that under no circumstances will the terrorists be permitted to win.

7.14 p.m.

Mr. Reginald Eyre: Following the words of the Home Secretary in the debate on immigration last night there is a danger that a considerable wrong will be inflicted on the local authorities in the large reception areas which accommodate the majority of immigrants. Although the Home Secretary gave no clear definition of Government policy on immigration, he did not accept any of the suggestions about how to reduce the number of arrivals. Before the House adjourns it is necessary for the Leader of the House to make the Government's position clear.
A clear consequence flows from the Minister's speech, which showed that no fewer than 60,000 coloured immigrants will come into the country in the next 12 months—and it could be a much larger number. We must take account of the limited number of reception areas in England. There are perhaps no more than 12 major centres that receive immigrants. The reception areas are mainly in the inner areas of large towns and cities in the West Midlands, Lancashire, Yorkshire, the East Midlands and London.
Anyone who knows anything about the inner areas of such towns will know that they have a concentration of problems. They are rundown areas with old schools and an accumulation of social problems. In addition, they are expected to take on the extra responsibility of


immigrants. Birmingham, Bolton, Bradford and Leicester are among those centres facing severe problems.
Inevitably, more than 95 per cent. of the new arrivals coming here within the next 12 months will go to established reception areas, because dependants will join their families and new family groups, from East Africa for instance, will go to friends who live in parts of the country where similar people reside. The majority of immigrants will settle in the already densely populated and established immigrant areas.
During the last 18 months, in accordance with Government policy as described by the hon. Member for York (Mr. Lyon), there have been substantial increases in the number of immigrants coming into the country. The consequence is that the reception areas are already badly overcrowded and many of the services provided are near breaking point. Few realise the nature of the demographic change which has taken place in densely populated areas such as Sparkbrook and Handsworth in Birmingham over the last 25 years. A tremendous deterioration has taken place in the quality of services available to people in those areas.
We know that the Government are going on with their policy of receiving large numbers of extra immigrants. People already living in the areas such as Spark-brook and Handsworth know that they must make a success of the present situation. But the problems I am talking about will make it more difficult to work towards establishing good race relations in those areas. People in the difficult areas of Birmingham are understandably saying—as the former Government Chief Whip, the right hon. Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish) said yesterday—that enough is enough.
In answer to a Question last week the Minister talked of Government policy on receiving immigrants into this country. He said that, given sensible planning, the problems could be coped with. There is no trace of sensible planning in the way in which the Government are developing their policy. They have a completely haphazard attitude to the arrival of enormous numbers of extra people. Worst of all, interpreting the Home Secretary's words, it appears that there will be no increase in resources

available to local authorities that will have to undertake Ibis extra responsibility.
Before the House rises the right hon. Gentleman should spell out exactly what the Government position is in relation to the local authorities with these enormous responsibilities. The Home Secretary said yesterday:
there is no prospect, with present pressures on public expenditure, of allocating more resources to it."—[Official Report, 24th May 1976; Vol. 912, c. 103.]
He was talking about the problems of receiving all these extra populations in the reception areas. If the local authorities concerned are to have no extra resources to meet the costs of the increased demand upon services, particularly education, housing and social services, it will be dreadfully irresponsible of the Government to saddle so many industrial towns and cities with these burdens. Therefore, I hope that the Leader of the House will be able to say exactly what the Government's position is.
I do not believe that the policy spelt out by the Home Secretary can be sustained. It is essential that, as hon. Members on this side of the House have asked, the Government spell out in much clearer detail before the House rises their policy on immigration. It is particularly important that they should make clear also exactly where they stand on the allocation of resources to those large areas which have to struggle with such enormous problems because they are the reception areas for immigrants.

7.21 p.m.

Mr. Dudley Smith: I shall be brief, because a number of my hon. Friends have been waiting a long time to take part in the debate.
I wish to take up the theme of my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Mr. Eyre). After yesterday's debate, initiated by my hon. Friend the Member for Thanet, East (Mr. Aitken), in a most impressive speech, there is now an overwhelming need for a full-scale debate in Government time on the subject of immigration, even if it cannot take place before we adjourn for the Whitsun Recess. We heard some very important facts and figures from my hon. Friend yesterday, and we were also given some


remarkable information by the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell), which changes the whole scene.
In contrast to the speeches of my hon. Friend and the right hon. Gentleman was the speech of the former Minister of State, Home Office, the hon. Member for York (Mr. Lyon). That speech, if ever I heard one, showed just how out of touch the Home Office is with this subject. Although personally he is a pleasant person, the hon. Gentleman was extremely longwinded, very complacent and inaccurate. After what I heard from him, I am not surprised that we are in our present state as regards immigration.
My concern—I have worked at it for the past two years in the House—is the improvement of race relations. I represent a consituency with 5,000 or 6,000 immigrants, and I know the problems. Much more must be done by Parliament and the people of this country to improve race relations, but I believe also that we have had too much immigration and that something must be done to curb it even further.
I urge upon the Leader of the House that we need a debate on the subject. In the past few days, particularly yesterday, untold damage has been done to race relations, not through my hon. Friend's raising the subject in a debate which was necessary and overdue, but through the revelations of the inexpertness of the Home Office in dealing with the subject and producing the kind of statistics that it does produce. Add to that the recent disadvantageous publicity about the family housed in a four-star hotel in Sussex, and the publicity not long ago about an immigrant constituent of mine receiving £102 a week tax-free because he has 12 children, and one realises all too well that the ball is moving in the wrong direction. Many of us, including our Select Committee, are trying to improve race relations, but, far from improving, they are worsening. Until we have from the Government better parameters, a better definition of what they propose to do, and figures that bear some relation to reality, the situation will go on deteriorating.
I agree with what has already been said about a growing conspiracy of silence over recent years on the subject. The

minute one talks about it, one can be accused of being racist. My hon. Friend in his speech yesterday kindly quoted a point I had made about illegitimate children in the West Indies, an important and valid point. When it was reported in my local Press I was attacked by certain individuals for being racist. They said how wrong it was to suggest that immigrants might be illegitimate. The moment anyone brings the subject up outside the House he is accused of being biased. We need more and more men and women of good will, more and more people who are basically tolerant but are extremely worried about the situation, to speak up clearly.
I hope that the Leader of the House, who is renowned for his belief in freedom, will urge upon the Government that they should make the matter clear and that we need the debate of which I have been talking. We also very much need some credibility and decisiveness in Home Office actions to stop illegal entry. The various facts and figures bandied about yesterday showed that far too many people are getting into this country against the rules, either by subterfuge—by coming through the back door—or by bribery. On the morning of the debate I received a letter from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office about a case I had taken up, that of an Indian who had asked for his wife and six children to come to this country. The Under-Secretary of State wrote telling me that there was a hold-up because it had been discovered that four of the birth certificates were forgeries. That kind of thing is being repeated again and again. Until we tighten up on illegal entry, there will not be the credibility that people want from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Home Office.
The subject is one of the most important of the day. At the earliest possible opportunity we should have a full debate on immigration and a full statement from the Home Secretary on what he is doing to present credible and understandable figures on illegal entry and of net entry and on what action the Government intend to take this year to make sure that we at last tackle the problem of immigration sensibly and rationally, something that we have put off doing for far too long.

Mr. Dafydd Wigley: rose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now put, but Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER withheld his assent and declined then to put that Question.

Mr. Henderson: On a point of order, is it not clear that there is a filibuster going on?

Mr. Younger: Further to that point of order. The hon. Gentleman has been fortunate enough to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker. He might think about other people.

7.29 p.m.

Mr. Michael Latham: There is one subject above all others on which the House and the country expect a statement before the House rises for the Whitsun Recess—is there or is there not a South African connection? Is there or is there not a smear campaign going on? If so, when shall we be told the facts of it? The whole country is becoming completely bemused by the sort of allegations which are now being heard and which have been hinted at by the Prime Minister and others in the highest possible places of State. Before the Whitsun Recess, we expect a full statement from the Government on what is happening in this matter. We are sick and tired of rumours from madmen and goons without having proper statements from the Government. That is the first matter which should be cleared up.
The second matter—less sensational but very important—is what the Government will do with 213,000 people who are currently unemployed in the building industry. The latest survey by the National Federation of Building Trades Employers shows that the position is getting worse. It has worsened especially since January, for in a recent survey 47 per cent. of the respondents told the federation that they had fewer inquiries for new work than in January. What do the Government propose to do about that?
I do not think that the Government should be expanding public works. They should be giving private enterprise the incentive to develop its own new buildings and factories in order to give work for the construction industry. This would involve no new public sector expenditure at all.
Thirdly, the House ought not to adjourn until the Government have explained what procedures they intend to adopt in order to secure proper hearings for contractors alleged to have breached the so-called voluntary £6-a-week pay limit. I declare an interest, as I am myself a builder. There is a disgraceful and dubious procedure under the Department of the Environment Circular 123/75, published last December, by which any building contractor considered by the Department of Employment to have breached the pay limits is then reported to the Treasury, which then, in the words of the circular,
will consider, in consultation with the Departments concerned, whether they should therefore be barred from future Government contracts.
If they so decide, the Department of the Environment has to draw up a black list of contractors and to send it to local authorities. In the words of the circular,
In general no new tenders should be invited from them, nor should any new contract or significant extension to existing contracts he awarded to them.
As it happens, this procedure has not yet been used, to the best of my knowledge, but! what will happen in the new stage 2? We expect a statement from the Government before the House rises. I am particularly concerned that the Treasury can take away a builder's livelihood for breaching a voluntary policy without any right of public inquiry or other hearing at all.
On 26th January I asked for an assurance that firms would be permitted to be heard in their own defence under some proper appeal procedure in accordance with natural justice. The Chief Secretary to the Treasury replied that firms would be heard in the circumstances described. I was so dissatisfied that on 10th March I asked that the Chief Secretary should submit his proposals for the conduct of such hearings to the Council on Tribunals, and publish them. He replied that the way in which firms would be heard would be effective but informal. That simply is not enough. How can the House tolerate an official black list of business men, who have done nothing illegal, without any assurance of a fair hearing?
I wrote to the Chairman of the Council on Tribunals and asked him to look


into it, but he replied to me that he was unable to intervene in the case, because the procedure set out in the circular
would appear to have no statutory basis, and so falls outside the council's jurisdiction. As regards the decision of the Secretary of State for Employment as to whether the pay limits have been breached, again no statutory procedure appears to have been provided, and I cannot see any grounds on which the council could now intervene.
To add insult to injury, the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment told me, in two Written Answers on 26th January 1976, that civil servants who sent out a circular which blacklisted construction firms, who subsequently, it appeared, had not breached the limits at all, would be indemnified against libel actions. He even shuffled off the Minister's personal responsibility in such a case by saying:
I am advised that my right hon. Friend's personal responsibility raises legal questions and would depend on the circumstances of the case."—[Official Report, 26th January 1976; Vol. 903, c. 19.]
What it comes to in 1976, therefore, is that the Government produce a voluntary pay policy—the right hon. Gentleman himself advocated it in the House as a voluntary pay policy—which black-lists those who breach it, without any guarantee of a fair hearing, and then use taxpayers' money to evade their responsibilities in law by indemnifying people who made a mistake. Is that justice? Will that happen in stage 2?
Surely the right thing now is either to abandon this deplorable procedure altogether or for the Government to lay down clear rules by which the independent Council on Tribunals can investigate any ministerial procedures. Natural justice demands a statement from the Government before the Whitsun Recess.

7.35 p.m.

Mr. Richard Luce: We should not adjourn until the Government have made a clear statement of intent on the growing problems relating to rural transport, and the obstacles facing every voluntary organisation in this country wishing to provide transport of one kind or another for the people it is trying to serve. I submit that last Friday, when the Government objected to my Transport (Amendment) Bill, they were dashing the hopes of very many people

living in villages all over the country who wish to have transport, who do not have a car, and who are badly in need of transport help.
I remind the House briefly that the simple objective of my Bill was to relax the licensing laws with regard to public service vehicles in order to enable minibuses, in areas where there were no clear National Bus Company routes, to operate and to provide a service for those people who do not have cars. What is more important—judging by my post-bag—is that the purpose of the Bill was to enable voluntary organisations to run mini-buses without all the terrible obstructions and obstacles which they now have to face in the licensing laws, and without having to apply to the county council for a grant, or to raise funds to enable them to charge a reasonably cheap fare to cover essential costs.
In that Bill there were quite adequate safeguards to ensure that the jobs of those working in the National Bus Company would not be immediately jeopardised and that the county councils would have responsibility for ensuring an orderly and rational system of bus representation. The need for an improvement in rural transport is self-evident, and has been growingly so over the last few years.
It is now becoming acute. We all know of the vicious spiral of increasing fares and diminishing passengers, the gradual withdrawal of bus services, and the growing number of routes which are making a loss and which the taxpayers are having increasingly to subsidise. Indeed, the Government's consultative document on transport actually accepts that there is a great social problem in the villages. It accepts that there is a grave problem and acknowledges that 30 per cent. of all households in the villages have no cars.
The analysis is extremely good, but the prescription is pathetic. All that is proposed in order to deal with this problem is a series of experiments in four areas under the existing licensing laws to see whether the situation can be improved. The Government then say that they might consider introducing a Bill to allow another few experiments in certain areas under relaxed licensing laws. By then another two or three years will have passed and the situation will be getting graver and graver.
The response to my Bill has been overwhelming. A large number of organisations, national and local, have given their support to the Bill, support running right across party lines. They include the National Consumer Council, the National Association of Women's Institutes, the National Association of Youth Clubs, Age Concern, the National Council for Social Service, the National Association of Local Councils, the Rural Community Council, a great mass of schools in Scotland, England and Wales, and a great mass of local voluntary bodies looking after the interests of those in need.
These and many other organisations have written to me to demonstrate their support and their urgent desire to see the Bill passed into law. It is a Bill designed to help the old, the disabled and those who are infirm in some way. It is designed to help the youth clubs and the schoolchildren of Britain by facilitating the use of mini-buses for their extra-curricula activities. There is overwhelming desire for action now.
It was three years ago that my right hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton) introduced a Bill on behalf of the then Government, the Road Traffic Bill, which was designed for the very purpose of relaxing the licensing laws to cater for a situation which was then very bad but which today is far worse. A growing number of people are facing serious difficulties and problems of social isolation today.
There is great disappointment across the country that to all intents and par-poses the Government have destroyed my Bill by objecting to it and thus ensuring that no time will be provided for adequate discussion and debate. At a time when action is required, the Government have responded in a pathetic fashion to the nature of the problem that they face.
By sabotaging my Bill, which should command the support of all quarters of the House, they have sabotaged the hopes of the old, the infirm, the disabled and young people and many schoolchildren in villages today. This issue should be debated.
The Government should make a statement before the House adjourns, for the recess. Until they do so, their expressions of concern for those in need can beregarded only as sheer and utter hypocrisy.

7.42 p.m.

Mr. George Younger: We are proposing to rise for the recess at a peculiarly unfortunate moment. There appears to be an awful lot of unfinished business that the Government really ought to complete before coming to the recess.
I reinforce what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Shoreham (Mr. Luce) by reminding the Lord President not only that the situation as described by my hon. Friend applies all over the country but that in Scotland there have been strong rumours over the last few days that there are to be such savage cuts in rural bus services in the near future that those employed in the bus services in Scotland are contemplating some form of industrial action in protest. This makes all the more incomprehensible the lack of Government policy concerning rural transport. I hope that the Lord President will consider that matter as being of immense importance before we rise for the recess.
The Lord President has been pressed to do many things today. I hope that he will take seriously the concern expressed about the UNCTAD conference in Kenya and the lack of a declaration on the part of the Government about their stance at that conference, in any acceptable way—although I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will not succumb to the blandishments of his hon. Friend the Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) by jumping into commodity agreements, because there is by no means a clear case that commodity agreements would necessarily be of advantage to Britain, at any rate if they were entered into with any haste.
I also agree with what has been said today about the Law of the Sea Conference. It is quite extraordinary that after the session that ended in April the Government have not given us a report on their views on the results, if any, of that conference, and their views about the next session. I hope that we shall have an answer on that matter before the House rises.
There is, however, an issue of great urgency which we cannot happily leave until be re-assemble after the recess. That is the problem of young, newly-qualified teachers throughout the country who are facing the end of their training period without any prospects of getting jobs. The Government have much more of a


responsibility than they have so far admitted.
It is not good enough for the Prime Minister to say, as he said at Question Time today, that the rate of unemployment of young teachers is not as high as the rate among other groups. That may be true, but the Government cannot shrug off their responsibility to people whom they have encouraged to go into training, whom they have supported financially to do their training, a training covering many years, and whom they have allowed to complete that training, and then coolly go through their economic policies and not provide the means for those people to be employed.
I am not saying that the Government have taken on a complete obligation to employ every teacher in all circumstances and at all times. However, when the Government have had to change course in their economic policies in the middle of these young people's training, they have an obligation to do something about it and to make some means available to give them jobs.
This situation is affecting people very seriously indeed. In my constituency we have the Craigie College of Education. It is a relatively new college but it has a high reputation and a very good record in every kind of study, in behaviour, and everything else. I have had representations from many of my constituents who are students there. I have received a letter from the president of the students' union there asking me to raise this point. He points out that as at 14th May—a week or two ago, but fairly recently—the position in that one college, which is only one of many in Scotland, let alone the rest of Britain, was that out of the total number of students expected to qualify within the next few weeks, 174, only 52 had by 14th May any prospect of jobs, leaving 122 of them without a chance of employment. In one college that is surely a very serious matter.
This afternoon quite a number of hon. Members have raised this matter. One was my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries (Mr. Monro). However, the important thing is that we should emphasise to the Government that we, on the Opposition side of the House at any rate, are not suggesting that they can afford to increase

public expenditure to real with this problem. We are not suggesting that and we have not suggested that. It is pointless for the hon. Member for Renfrewshire, West (Mr. Buchan) and the hon. Member for Edinburgh, Central (Mr. Cook) to pretend that we have been suggesting increasing public expenditure and to condemn us for that. What we have said all along is that the Government must re-order their priorities in education spending in order to put these unfortunate young teachers higher up the scale of priorities.

Mr. Robert Hughes: Where is the money to come from? The hon. Gentleman is putting forward a spurious argument.

Mr. Younger: We have been making specific suggestions as to how this money could be raised. There may be many other suggestions. I have made only two suggestions to the Government. However, what Labour Members must face up to is the fact that they cannot ride two horses at one time. They are rightly showing sympathy with constituents and others in this unfortunate position, but they are not prepared to accept that the only way in which the Government can solve this problem is to alter the priorities for spending within the sums of money they have allocated.
It is no use the hon. Member for Edinburgh, Central saying that the Government ought to ignore the need to constrain public expenditure. It might be attractive to the hon. Gentleman in one sense if they did that, but the rest of us would be ruined for years to come if the Government allowed public expenditure to rise. Hon. Members must face that fact.
I am suggesting that the Government must say to these young teachers that they accept that one of the most important priorities in education is to give jobs to young, newly-qualified teachers. If the Government accept that that is their duty—I hope that the Lord President will accept that it is—let the Government get down to the question of deciding which priorities must come down in importance in order to give jobs to those who have just qualified as teachers.

Mr. Robin F. Cook: May I put again to the hon. Gentleman the point that I put to him when he intervened during


my speech? This time I put it in the form of a question. Has he discussed with the president and officials of Craigie College in his constituency his suggestion that the money for their employment should be found by increasing the price of school lunches and by taking away school milk?

Mr. Younger: I have not discussed that with them. I should be glad to do so. At least I can claim to have been constructive and to have produced a concrete suggestion about a way to raise enough money to give jobs to almost all, if not all, these teachers who are unemployed.
It is tragic that the Government's own economic policy has lead them to the position where they have to cut expenditure. It is their incompetence that has lead to this position, and now it is up to all of us to help bail them out of the mess they have made. They cannot afford the money to give these young people jobs.
It hurts these young teachers a great deal. Most of them have spent at least three years studying. It is not only the teachers qualifying this summer who are affected. I have a constituent who is not due to qualify this summer but who is on a domestic science course which would normally finish with a fourth year of study at Jordanhill College. That constituent has completed three years in a domestic science college and now she has been told that she cannot get a place at Jordanhill College because the Government are cutting back on entry. She has gone three-quarters of the way through her course and is now denied for all time the professional qualification for which she has studied for three years.
The Government have to accept that they have been forced to change their economic policy and make cuts in public expenditure. They cannot make these young teachers bear the brunt of that burden. They have to accept that as changes have to be made, they must have a change in their priorities in education expenditure in order to give these people employment.

Mr. Buchan: In view of the hon. Member's deep concern about this matter, would he suggest that we tax the breweries more heavily or take them into

public ownership to help pay for the provision of jobs for these young teachers?

Mr. Younger: I am not sure what calculations the hon. Gentleman has made—I have not made any—on how many extra teachers could be given jobs by taking industries into public ownership. I am sure that it will be a great relief to young teachers to know that this is his solution.
I have tried to be constructive and to make a suggestion. There is £1 million laid aside by the Government for extending free school milk to older primary school children. This will not affect children whose parents are on a low income or on social security, because they get free school milk anyway. It will affect only those whose parents are on average earnings or on good wages. That £1 million would be better spent on giving jobs to 250 young teachers. That is my proposition—one can either agree with it or disagree, but it is still a fair proposition.
There is also the Government's proposal to cancel the extra charge for school meals. This will cost the Exchequer £53 million, of which about £5 million will apply to Scotland. There is another £5 million which could be made available to give jobs to hundreds of young teachers who are out of work.
Would the Lord President tell us whether it is more important to extend free school milk and cancel the extra charges for school meals than it is to find jobs for young teachers? If he thinks it is more important, he should say so and take the consequences.

7.56 p.m.

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Michael Foot): We have had a good debate on this subject and I hope that the House will now allow me to reply to it. I know that the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton) is engaged in discussions elsewhere, but I have no doubt he will return to the House as soon as he is able to do so. I hope to refer to many of the questions raised but it should be understood that I am not called upon to discuss the merits of all the issues raised. I am here to discuss the relevance of the issues raised to the question


whether we should rise for the Whitsun Recess. That is a much narrower point than, for example, the question which the hon. Member for Ayr (Mr. Younger) put forward on the priorities of public expenditure.
The hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale (Mr. Montgomery) asked what had happened to the Education Bill. No doubt he wanted to see its speedy progress through the House. I hope that we shall make progress on it soon after we return from the recess. Therefore the question whether we should rise for the recess does not arise on the issue. The hon. Member also raised the subject of the Government's immigration policy, as did the hon. Member for Hall Green (Mr. Eyre) and the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. Smith). They all seemed to be continuing the immigration debate which we had yesterday, and that does not seem to be a matter which should be raised in connection with the Whitsun Recess.
On the question of immigration policy generally, I have nothing to add to what my right hon. Friend said yesterday, which I thought admirably discharged the call in the resolution for
a clear and accurate statement
of Government policy. I can confirm that a formal inquiry has been instituted into the disclosure of the report of Mr. Hawley's visit to the Indian sub-continent. The matter is under consideration and I have nothing further to add to that. There will be occasions in the future when the general immigration debate can be continued but there is no special reason why the debate should be continued before the Whitsun Recess.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Lanark (Mrs. Hart), the hon. Member for Ayr and my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) all mentioned the UNCTAD conference in Nairobi. Certainly nobody knows more about these matters than does my right hon. Friend and she was able to cite the names of others who had signed the motion and who have most detailed knowledge of the subject. I certainly agree about the importance which they attach to this subject, and the importance of trying to ensure that we get as much success as possible from the discussions which are to take place.
I see that the right hon. Member for Yeovil has returned. I am sorry that I started before he returned, but we wanted to make some progress in this debate.
As far as the UNCTAD conference is concerned, the United Kingdom commodity initiative made in Kingston a year ago has had a substantial impact on thinking in the developing countries and we are determined to build on that success and the progress achieved subsequently, including the report of the Comonwealth experts on the basis for future international work. Such consensus is vital in the interests of the world as a whole. Now that the conference is moving into its final stage, we are working actively with the developed nations and the Commonwealth for a compromise solution, including the common fund which was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, South. We all hope that this compromise will emerge from the conference.
Certainly the Government approach the matter with flexibility and good will, and we believe that a satisfactory outcome is still possible. When the conference is over there will be a proper report to the House on the matter. I am most grateful to my right hon. and hon. Friends for having raised the matter in this debate. It was an absolutely proper use of this type of debate because it involved a matter on which urgent representations could be made which could affect an immediate situation.
Two or three hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Christchurch and Lymington (Mr. Adley), raised the question of rabies and asked what the Government were doing about these difficulties. I can assure the hon. Member for Eastleigh (Mr. Price) that the Government do not underrate the significance and importance of this matter. We are certainly prepared to do everything possible to combat the rabies threat. That does not mean that we necessarily think that a Select Committee is the best way to proceed. The Minister of Agriculture has made available to the House a great deal of information about this subject. He has given informative parliamentary replies in recent weeks and he has prepared an explanatory memorandum which should be of interest to all hon. Members.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services is considering making a statement this week on the medical knowledge available for treating rabies in humans. In addition, my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is arranging a meeting, probably on Thursday, with a group of hon. Members to consider powers of arrest and penalties for rabies offences. It was also suggested that the Trade and Industry Sub-Committee of the Expenditure Committee should consider investigating the Government's anti-rabies measures. In the circumstances it would be wise to take account of all these developments.
It would be most misleading for anyone to suggest—I am not saying that hon. Members have done that—that we have acted other than to keep this dreadful disease out of the country. A whole series of measures have been taken and are being taken, and that is the right way to proceed. I therefore have nothing further to say to the hon. Member for Eastleigh about the Select Committee, but because we do not wish to proceed in that direction for the moment that does not mean that we have not taken every measure we can to avoid the serious situation which hon. Members fear.
My hon. Friends the Members for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hughes), Edinburgh, Central (Mr. Cook) and Renfrew-shire, West (Mr. Buchan), and one or two Conservative Members conducted a general educational debate which ranged over not whether we should adjourn for the Whitsun Recess but what has happened during recent years. It would be intrusive of me to enter into that debate, but that does not mean that I do not accept what my hon. Friends have said. They have a right to speak in this matter, but the Conservatives, who have been so eager to slash public expenditure, do not speak with such a strong voice.
My hon. Friends expressed a feeling and anxiety which is widespread in all parts of the country and which needs urgent consideration. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education is greatly concerned about it, and although I cannot promise a statement before the recess, I am sure that he will be considering how best he can inform the House of his view. It may be that

my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland will make a statement before the recess, but I cannot give a guarantee or undertaking about that.

Mr. Monro: The Leader of the House should tell us rather more than he has told us about the Government's view on this subject, and what they plan to do before we adjourn.

Mr. Foot: I can go no further than I have already gone, and I can give no guarantee that Ministers will make statements before the recess, although that is a possibility. This is not the occasion to debate the general merits of an argument. We should use this debate to consider whether there is a case for early statements, which could influence policy, to be made before Parliament rises for the recess. All the arguments have to be related to that. Most of the Opposition arguments were related to much wider questions of policy. If I were to reply on that basis the arguments would never end.

Mr. Anthony Fell: The right hon. Gentleman is the last person to take that line.

Mr. Foot: In the days when I used to engage in this kind of debate from the Back Benches, at least we had to show sufficient ingenuity to keep in order. It is necessary that our comments in these debates should be related to the recess. Whenever I engaged in such enterprises in the past I always sought to relate what I said to the motion.

Mr. Fell: I was laughing because I remember that in 1964 the right hon. Gentleman was the protagonist among Labour Members who were dragging the debate out as far as possible. Just because the Chair is now extremely kind to hon. Members, it does not lie in the right hon. Gentleman's hands to query what the Chair is doing.

Mr. Foot: I am not attempting to usurp the functions of the Chair. I have sufficient difficulty in doing my own job without trying to do Mr. Speaker's job as well. I am simply trying to make a few sententious asides on the question, and it is appropriate that these should be made occasionally, particularly when that helps to ensure that I do not have to enter into the full merits of the argument.
The hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, East (Mr. Henderson) asked the Government for a statement on their general fishing policy. There is a need for a general statement on this subject, but there is no possibility of its being made before the recess and I do not think the hon. Member was pressing for that. We understand the necessity for such a statement partly because of the cod war and partly because of developments in the EEC and associated events. There will be a statement but I cannot give a time for it—except to say that it will not be before we depart for the recess, unless I have been ill-informed by the Minister of Agriculture. That is always a possibility, but I do not think it has occurred on this occasion.

Mr. W. R. Rees-Davies: While the right hon. Gentleman is fishing in rather deep waters, could he comment on a subject which may save him at least one speech hereafter? Are we likely to get a debate on Cyprus? While fishing was being discussed by the NATO Ministers, so, too, one hopes, was Cyprus. This is a matter of great urgency. There are at least two motions on the Order Paper relating to Cyprus. They have been signed by hon. Members from both sides of the House who want a debate on the issue.

Mr. Foot: That will be a perfectly legitimate matter to put when we have a statement, before we rise on Friday, about future business. The intervention of the hon. and learned Member illustrates what I have been saying. There is no possibility of a debate before the recess. If the hon. and learned Gentleman puts the question to me again later this week, I shall give him a reply which will deal with the subject. I am not guaranteeing a debate. I shall wait to see what question is put and how widespread is the desire for a debate, though this is obviously, subject to some qualification, a matter to be considered for debate.
The hon. Member for Antrim, South (Mr. Molyneaux) asked some serious and important questions concerning the wellbeing, livelihood, and, often, the lives of people in Northern Ireland. I shall draw his remarks to the attention of the Secretaries of State for Defence and Northern Ireland, though the hon. Mem

ber was good enough to acknowledge that the statement by the Secretary of State for Defence was a good approach to the matter. To some extent, the hon. Member answered his own plea. That is always satisfactory because it means that I do not have to intervene on that aspect of the debate either.
The hon. Member for Melton (Mr. Latham) raised the South African connection. I have nothing to say on that subject. I understand that it is a security matter, and that is a good reason for not saying anything about it—quite apart from any other reasons.
The hon. Member also raised the question how the £6 policy had worked and what he considered to be an improper application of the policy. This is a perfect illustration of a matter which it is not proper to raise on this debate. The hon. Member made points which he could have made as the legislation was going through the House. It was also open to him or anyone else to question how the policy had operated by putting down Questions to the Department of Employment. It was insisted upon that the Department, which was responsible for that aspect of the policy, should be answerable to the House for anything it might do. There is no need to raise this matter in the debate on the recess. The hon. Member has had ample opportunity to put down Questions since the measure was put on the statute book.
Perhaps I might also deal, by anticipation, with the other part of the hon. Member's question, which was how stage 2 would be dealt with under the forthcoming policy. Again, this is not a question which should properly be raised in this debate. The House will obviously have to discuss how the policy is to be applied under stage 2. That will be the exactly proper moment for the hon. Member to put his question. The continuance of the policy for another 12 months can be carried through only with the consent of the House. Hon. Members will have the opportunity to discuss and vote upon proposals put by the Government. All that was made clear when we discussed the original £6 limit.
The hon. Member for Shoreham (Mr. Luce) spoke about rural transport and complained that his Bill had not been accepted by the Government. Again, he answered his own point by saying that the


Government had made an admirable statement on the situation in the consultative document on transport. We shall obviously have to debate that document, and that is another reason for my insistence—which is perhaps rather tiresome—that where it is obvious that there will be debates in the House or where there are matters which cannot become law without a proper debate in the House and there is no special urgency, these are subjects the merits of which should not be discussed in detail in Adjournment debates.

Mr. Luce: I stressed that this is a growing social problem in many villages in this country, and although the consultative document was brilliant in its analysis of the problem, its prescription was rotten.
Mr. Foot: I understand that there are considerable problems with transport in rural areas all over the country, but it is not the sort of matter which the House should debate on this motion. We ought to be discussing questions where attitudes and actions of the Government can be influenced. Where the Government have set out a brilliant document on rural transport and it is evident that they will be bringing forward proposals, this is obviously not the sort of subject for this debate.
I shall shortly draw my remarks to a close.

Mr. Fell: Why?

Mr. Foot: Because we must proceed with our business. There is important legislation which the House is eager to see on the statute book. Hon. Members may laugh, but the evidence is on the record. We have had a Second Reading and the Committee stage proceeded smoothly, though not hastily, and the House is eager to conclude the matter.
I have tried to deal with questions involving special matters of urgency or matters which could be brought to the attention of Ministers. The hon. Member for Antrim, South gave a perfect example of how to use this debate to deal with matters of special urgency. Some of the other questions, such as those raised by the hon. Member for Melton, were irrelevant to this debate.

Mr. Michael Latham: rose—

Mr. Foot: It will be remarkable if the hon. Member can achieve even one out

of 100 in his intervention now, but I shall give him the opportunity and then I shall conclude my remarks.

Mr. Michael Latham: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that many of us who have attended these debates before have the feeling that his predecessor gave much fuller answers to the subjects which were raised and did not seek to decide what was proper and what was not? I presume that "proper" is a moral judgment that cannot refer to the Chair, otherwise it would have been called out of order.

Mr. Foot: Of course the Chair decides all these matters. I am merely giving my view about the way in which these debates should be handled. If I have not replied as fully, extensively and comprehensively as my predecessor, I am afraid that that is a sad decline which the House will have to endure for as long as I am in my present position. It is still my view that if we turn the Adjournment debate into an elaborate discussion of the merits of all the matters that arise, all the highly satisfactory legislation which the House is so eager to see on the statute book would hardly ever get there. I am sure that nobody would be more disappointed than the right hon. Member for Yeovil, even if he managed to conceal his displeasure.

8.22 p.m.

Mr. John Peyton: I am not always successful in my attempts to conceal my displeasure, but if the legislation to which the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House has referred, did not get through the House, I am bound to say that my disappointment would be so negligible that I should have no trouble in hiding it.
First, I say how much I appreciated the right hon. Gentleman's courtesy in understanding why I could not be in the Chamber at the beginning of his speech. We all very much enjoyed the right hon. Gentleman's speech, but it was surely not the speech of a man in a hurry. It was a leisured performance. Incidentally, we have all noticed how greatly attached the right hon. Gentleman has become to the Dispatch Box and how happy he is in that position. It is very nice to see him there, even if he strays to some of his Bank Bench habits from time to time. However, it was strange to find him


sitting in judgment for some of the time on what was and was not relevant.
We have little to be thankful for in the House, but one of the things that I still feel remotely touched by is that while the right hon. Gentleman remains in office as Leader of the House he is not occupying the Chair. I hope that his modesty will assert itself in due course so that he confines himself to one rôle at a time. After all, who is the right hon. Gentleman to judge my patient hon. Friends, who have been so brief? Who is he to take them to task when he is positively boasting of what he calls his sententious asides?
For those of my hon. Friends who have not yet spoken, my presence at the Dispatch Box is not to be taken as any indication that the debate is at an end from the point of view of the Opposition. I merely thought that it would be courteous to follow the right hon. Gentleman when he finished his speech.
My hon. Friends the Members for Altrincham and Sale (Mr. Montgomery), Warwick and Leamington (Mr. Smith) and Birmingham, Hall Green (Mr. Eyre), all applied themselves to immigration. Last weekend I was in Lancashire, and I was left in no doubt as to the depth of feeling in that area. The Government would be very wrong merely to think that a debate for a few hours on a Private Member's motion is enough to put the problem on one side. My right hon. and hon. Friends will recall the days when issues which troubled the then Labour Opposition were brought constantly before the House. Indeed, if my hon. Friends have any fault as an Opposition it is that they have not yet understood the value and importance of repetition, especially when a Government show themselves incapable to receiving messages very easily.
The Government's silence on immigration concerned my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale. I think that he was quite right to voice his concern. The astonishing development of a secret Foreign Office report is not one which can be waved aside. I expected the Government, in all the circumstances, to take the matter away, to think about it, and to undertake to make a statement before the House rose for the recess.

Mr. Fell: I am sure that my right hon. Friend has noticed that the Leader of the House has disappeared. I am sure that he has also noticed that an extraordinary confabulation seems to be taking place on the Government Front Bench. I wonder why the right hon. Gentleman has disappeared. Surely these are most important matters for him to consider. I am sure that he has an important engagement of some sort, but the fact is he is not here.
I remember that when the right hon. Gentleman was on the Back Benches he was the person who kept the House waiting every time on precisely these subjects. I should like to know the whereabouts of the right hon. Gentleman. After all, it is for him to answer these matters. Why did he disappear the moment my right hon. Friend got up?

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Privy Council Office (Mr. William Price): Surely the one allegation that cannot be made against my right hon. Friend is a lack of attention to debates. If I may say so, he has been here today a damned sight longer than the hon. Member for Yarmouth (Mr. Fell). My right hon. Friend will be back within two or three minutes. Everyone has good cause to leave the Chamber from time to time.

Mr. Peyton: First, who am I to answer for the rather delicate matters which have been raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Yarmouth (Mr. Fell)? The reasons for the presence or absence of the Leader of the House are entirely for him. As the right hon. Gentleman treated me with some courtesy, I shall not press him too hard.
However, if I could have the attention of his junior colleague, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Privy Council Office, who, I thought, spoke rather rashly, the hon. Gentleman said—I do not know whether you heard him, Mr. Deputy Speaker—that he did not give a damn, or something like that. In any event, he used some words which are not ordinarily parliamentary. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I hope that hon. Members will check the record. The hon. Gentleman used the word "damn" very clearly.
If junior Ministers had so conducted themselves when the Conservative Party was in Government, we should have had a row that would have continued for half


an hour. The hon. Gentleman chances his luck a bit too often. There are some junior Ministers who think that they can get away with everything too easily and for too long merely because my right hon. Friends are a sight too patient and tolerant.
I return to the more gentle tenor of my remarks, when I was so interestingly interrupted by my hon. Friend the Member for Yarmouth. My hon. Friend the Member for Hall Green brought to his speech the knowledge and experience of one who has been very close to the problems of immigration, and especially the problems which occur in the established centres of reception.
I hope that the Leader of the House will read that speech, will not say "We had a debate on that matter on Monday", but will take seriously the experience of an hon. Member such as my hon. Friend the Member for Hall Green and will act upon it. I hope that he will also take note of the request that I now make—namely, that the Government do not go off for the recess without making some further statement to the House about the report that emerged from the Foreign Office.
My hon. Friends the Members for Christchurch and Lymington (Mr. Adley) and Eastleigh (Mr. Price) very properly raised the subject of rabies. I thought that on the whole the Leader of the House made at least some noises that encouraged one to believe that the Government were at last coming round to taking the matter seriously.
I recall not long ago that we received little lectures from the right hon. Member for Huyton (Sir H. Wilson), who, I am delighted, is no longer Prime Minister. The right hon. Gentleman when Prime Minister used to inform us in a trite manner from time to time that this was no laughing matter. Rabies was one of those subjects which, we were tartly informed, was no laughing matter. At any rate, I am glad that the Government have now got it down on the list of subjects for action. I hope that my hon. Friends who raised this serious matter will pursue it in future with the vigilance that we have come to expect of them.
My hon. Friends the Members for Dumfries (Mr. Monro) and Ayr (Mr. Younger) referred to the despair and

frustration of newly qualified teachers for whom there were no jobs. I am sure that they did justice to a very serious problem. I hope that when we get back after the recess we shall hear some sensible ideas from the Secretary of State for Scotland, not to mention the Secretary of State for Education and Science in England.
The hon. Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) expressed disappointment with the response of the right hon. Member for Huyton and of the Prime Minister to the UNCTAD conference and then went on to express his dissatisfaction with his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade. In those three remarks he carried the Opposition with him, quite unusually, because we have no grounds to be satisfied with any of those Ministers.
The hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, East (Mr. Henderson) is in a very happy position whenever he speaks in this House, because he is able to lash about him at everybody and all concerned. But his great enthusiasm for the fishing industry expired rather soon, because he was not present to hear the answer from the Leader of the House.

Mr. Henderson: It was probably useless.

Mr. Peyton: The hon. Gentleman could not possibly have anticipated that the reply by the Leader of the House would be as useless as it was. But I think that there may be an element of realism in such an expectation, because the hon. Gentleman has not been here long enough for his optimism to be destroyed.
The right hon. Member for Walsall. North (Mr. Stonehouse) must forgive me if I do not follow him at length on the subject of pyramid selling. The mention of pyramid selling reminded me of the right hon. Gentleman's erstwhile colleagues who conduct themselves in selling trashy goods in a fraudulent manner to an unsuspecting subject.

Mr. Tim Renton (Mid-Sussex): It will doubtless have struck my right hon. Friend that an undertaking was given to the House that the Leader of the House would be back in two or three minutes. I think that five, six, seven or eight minutes must now have elapsed. In the circumstances, would it be appropriate for a


posse to go and see whether the Leader of the House is all right?

Mr. Peyton: I admire the generous and warm-hearted concern of my hon. Friend for the Leader of the House and I share his hope that the right hon. Gentleman is perfectly comfortable. I must say that, in a rather contrary way, I share just a little the wish that my hon. Friend expressed for the early return of the Leader of the House, even if it interrupts the earnest consultations which often precede the barbarous motion, 'That the Question be now put.

Mr. Fell: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am extremely worried because the House is now in a situation in which the Government have promised that a very senior Minister—namely, the Leader of the House—will be back in two or three minutes to hear the important speech being made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton). Some seven or eight minutes have now passed since we were given that promise by the Government. May we now have some idea of the Government's intentions?

Mr. Peyton: My hon. Friend, obviously in his kindness and optimism, stirs up hopes that the return of the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House will import something constructive into the debate. I do not think that the presence of the right hon. Gentleman is likely to be particularly helpful, but I agree that his presence would be polite. I do not wish to detain the House for long and I shall not match minute for minute, the effort of the Leader of the House, who gave the impression of being a man who was not in a hurry.
The hon. Member for Antrim, South (Mr. Molyneaux) spoke for all of us when he said that the terrorist must not win. We all regret that at present the lessons that are being learned in our country are to the effect that the men of muscle and violence normally win, and indeed receive over-abundant encouragement. The hon. Gentleman's remarks were well-made.
My hon. Friend the Member for Shoreham (Mr. Luce) mentioned the topic of rural transport. The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House produced

an extraordinary answer when he said that because the problem of rural transport had existed for some time, it was improper that the matter should be raised on this Adjournment motion. The right hon. Gentleman said that the Government had produced a document. When I was in that dreadful organisation, the Department of the Environment, I was constantly tempted to produce some document on transport. I resiled from doing so because I had a clear appreciation of the fact that the product was likely to be idiotic. The Government have now produced a paper of first quality.

Mr. Russell Kerr: Address the Chair!

Mr. Peyton: The hon. Member for Feltham and Heston (Mr. Kerr) is the sole of courtesy, etiquette and protocol, but if the Chair wishes to correct me, I am sure that it will do so without any prompting by the hon. Gentleman. Certainly in the matter of courtesy and politness, I must concede that the hon. Gentleman's output of remarks from a seated position exceeds that of any other hon. Member in the House.

Mr. Fell: rose—

Mr. Peyton: I have already given way twice to my hon. Friend, and I know that he has already raised a point of order. However, in his interventions he tends to stir up troubled waters, and I must tell him that I am a man of peace. I do not want to give way to my hon. Friend merely to find that he embarks on a long speech that stirs up all those nasty, unpleasant hornets on the Labour Benches.

Mr. Fell: My right hon. Friend is always the soul of courtesy. He accused my hon. Friends of being full of the milk of human kindness, and so on, and then he said the same thing of the hon. Member for Feltham and Heston (Mr. Kerr). That is worrying enough in itself. But what worries me even more is that my right hon. Friend is not bothering to get the Leader of the House back into this place before he finishes his speech. I expect my right hon. Friend to be tough with the Government about this.

Mr. Peyton: I must apologise to my hon. Friend, but I am afraid I have a thoroughly schizophrenic approach to the matter. That is why I am so undecided.


Although I should like to see the Leader of the House back here attempting to do his duty and to show a measure of courtesy to the House, nevertheless I am not sure that I want to see him. My enthusiasm for his beauty is tempered by my reluctance to trouble him.
I should like to touch upon many other matters, but time does not permit. However, before I leave the question of transport I want to say to my hon. Friend the Member for Shoreham that he was right to raise the matter. He was the more right to do so because of the ridiculous document produced by the Government, which makes no sense to anyone. I can quite understand the shyness of the Treasury Bench in not wishing to have that document discussed by the House before we rise for the recess or, for that matter, at any other time. If it ever comes up for discussion, I am afraid that Government supporters will have some very nasty differences of opinion to settle, and I doubt whether the Government's proposals will enjoy any fair weather.
It would please me very much if before the recess we could have cleared up some of the South African mysteries. One of the most popular gambits of the right hon. Member for Huyton when he was Prime Minister was to produce these very sinister allegations about powerful financial forces with tremendous backing undertaking awful activities, usually doing tremendous damage to the Liberal Party. I am bound to say that why anyone should be so consumed with passion towards the Liberal Party has never become clear to me. Perhaps the Liberal Party was an alternative target to someone else. I do not know. But just when we thought that all this vapour would be dissipated by the disappearance of the right hon. Member for Huyton from the Dispatch Box, the new Prime Minister, instead of seizing the chance to start with a clean sheet, goes in for the same thing and says that there is something in it.
If we do not get a statement on all these South African mysteries before the recess, I hope that when we come back after the recess the Government will satisfy our curiosity and make available to us the information on which Ministers have, presumably, based their remarks.
Sadly, in the absence of the Leader of the House, I raise this question of the Committees. Liberal Members have a motion on the Order Paper to which I have added my own name. What I do not understand is how the Government, having reached eventually and very reluctantly the right conclusion about Standing Committees, have totally avoided any consistent action about Select Committees.
I compliment Liberal Members on their tolerance and restraint in this matter. If I may encourage them, I hope that they will stir themselves so that they may eventually extract from the Government some admission that, having ceased to enjoy a majority in the House, they are no longer entitled to enjoy as of right a majority on Select Committees. They have conceded the point on Standing Committees. Why do not they do the same on Select Committees? I do not see that the Government have any answer to give to the House. I hope that after the recess—I suppose that it is too much to hope that they would do it before—we shall at long last have some sensible comments from the Government about the situation.
The Leader of the House told me the other day that he would also arrange for us to come back to the question of skimmed milk. What are we going to do when a law has been passed by the Community and we have denounced the conclusions? We have already had an inconclusive debate with the Government really just "taking note" of the situation and not in any way stirring themselves to action.
I wonder how long it is necessary for me to go on? I have been on my feet not nearly as long as the Leader of the House but I was desperately hoping to protect his reputation.

Mr. Max Madden: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Peyton: Yes, I will.

Mr. Madden: I presume my intervention is welcome in the right hon. Gentleman's speech.
Can he perhaps tell us whether he is contemplating joining his colleagues the right hon. and learned Member for Surrey, East (Sir G. Howe), the hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine), the


right hon. Member for Worcester (Mr. Walker) and the hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley), if not before the Adjournment, then soon after, to produce the collective works of Conservative disagreement on uneconomic policy? Before he leaves us today, can he perhaps expand on remarks made over the weekend about the mediocrities with whom he shares the Front Bench? This would be more interesting to the country than some of the remarks he has so far made.

Mr. Peyton: I would congratulate the hon. Gentleman on the last part of his remarks which were, at least, notably offensive as far as I am concerned. This is his only achievement. I would only warn him that it would, in my view, be awfully nice if he would just be a little more careful about what he read, and made sure that he understood it properly and did not jump to any conclusions on the basis of false information.

Mr. Gordon Wilson: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is it possible to put the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton) out of his anguish by moving the Closure?

Mr. Peyton: Let me say—

Mr. Gordon Wilson: rose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now put, but Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER withheld his assent and declined then to put that Question.

Mr. Peyton: If I may say so, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I note with admiration your unwillingness to accept advice from very uncertain quarters.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bryant Godman Irvine): I have the names of a number of hon. Gentlemen who would still like to address the House.

Mr. Peyton: I conclude my remarks sadly disappointed that the Leader of the House should have absented himself for so long from this debate when I was answering what he had said. I also end my remarks on a note of hope. In view of the promising remark that you yourself made just now, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that a number of my hon. Friends still wish to speak, I look forward to their doing so.

8.49 p.m.

Mr. Tom Arnold: I am sorry that the Lord President felt it necessary to say that some of my hon. Friends have made irrelevant speeches when they suggested that a proper reason that the House should not adjourn was to afford the Government time to make a statement following yesterday evening's revelations about what is obviously a serious dispute between the Home Office and the Foreign Office on immigration figures. The debate initiated by my hon. Friend the Member for Thanet, East (Mr. Aitken) raised more questions than it answered. Anyone who read today's Press must share the anxiety of most of the constituents to whom I have since been able to speak.
The origin of yesterday's debate was the growing public anxiety following the recent case of the Malawian Asians at Gatwick. The dispute between the Foreign Office and the Home Office which has come to light in the aftermath of those events should be resolved. Very few people can now have much faith in the Government's immigration figures, a fact which is bound to affect community relations here and the conduct of British foreign policy, particularly in the sub-continent. In both cases, the Government's word and the word of many civil servants, particularly in our High Commissions, are at stake.
Like many other hon. Members, I have received a large number of letters since public concern was first expressed about the Malawian Asians, and I have sought to give them such assurances as I can that figures produced by successive Governments have been more or less accurate. After yesterday's debate, I can no longer do so. The situation revealed is patently inadequate and has left far too many unanswered questions.
We need a further debate on the issues raised yesterday. If that is not possible, there should be a statement as soon as possible—certainly on Mr. Donald Hawley's report. How did this report come to be leaked? There have been too many illustrations recently of what can only be characterised as Government by leak. Only this afternoon, the hon. Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hughes) asked how members of the Scotish National Party obtained a copy of the Lord President's statement about


devolution when other hon. Members could not obtain it.
Public concern about immigration is a serious matter and it is growing. A statement is necessary to alleviate a proper anxiety which has certainly been added to by yesterday's debate. I hope that the Government will take the view that this subject is not irrelevant to deciding whether the House should adjourn. On the contrary, a statement is required to resolve what many people now regard as a wholly unsatisfactory situation.

8.54 p.m.

Mr. Ian Cow: Yesterday, there was a meeting between the TUC and the Labour Party Liaison Committee, after which a statement was issued. Before the House rises for the recess, the Government should make a statement repudiating those parts of that statement which refer to the attitude of the Government to various aspects of economic policy during the coming three years. The document is entitled "The Next Three Years and the Problem of Priorities". If the Government are serious in their protestations of concern for the falling value of the pound, they should repudiate five passages in that joint statement. The first is:
The past month has again demonstrated the tremendous value to the nation as a whole of the close working understanding and mutual commitment between the Labour Government and the wider Labour Movement.
It is precisely this commitment of the Government to the trade unions, this widespread belief at home and abroad that the Government are in the pockets of the trade unions, which has such a very damaging effect on the pound.

Mr. Russell Kerr: Ask the right hon. Member for Sidcup (Mr. Heath).

Mr. Gow: I will make my own speech, but I will certainly refer later to my right hon. Friend.

Mr. Fell: It will be within the memory of the House that the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House sat down at 26 minutes past eight o'clock. He has been out of the House for precisely 10 times the length of time that he promised. It was said that he would be away for two or three minutes. He has been away for more than 30 minutes. I should like to know what the right hon. Gentleman, who is always so

courteous to the House, is doing to be absent from the House at such a time as this for such a period.

Mr. Gow: I do not quite follow why my hon. Friend is getting so agitated about the whereabouts of the Leader of the House. Everybody seems to know where he is except my hon. Friend.

Mr. William Price: If it is a fact that everybody except the hon. Member for Yarmouth (Mr. Fell) knows where my right hon. Friend is, I will tell him. The Opposition rightly raised earlier a point of order. Discussions have been going on. The right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton) knew of the position end had absented himself from the Chamber for exactly similar consultations. Those have taken longer than was expected, and I apologise for that. But this is a matter which the Opposition raised on a point of order and which is of crucial importance to them, otherwise they would not have raised it, and the Leader of the House is doing no more than the Shadow Leader of the House did earlier, which is why the right hon. Member for Yeovil did not pursue the matter.

Mr. Victor Goodhew: On a point of Order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. In his anxiety the Minister at the Box does not seem to be quite sure whether he intends to reply to the speeches.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I am sure that the hon. Member is aware that the anxiety or lack of anxiety of the Minister at the Dispatch Box is not a matter for the Chair.

Mr. Fell: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Would it not be for the convenience of the Government, who do not seem to know exactly where they are, to adjourn for half an hour or so until they know exactly where they stand? That might be for the convenience of hon. Members opposite who find it rather boring to sit here instead of being elsewhere.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Some hon. Gentlemen would like an opportunity to make a speech.

Mr. Gow: The second aspect of the joint statement issued yesterday which I


invite the Treasury Bench to repudiate is:
When fully operational the National Enterprise Board should have at its disposal funds of at least £1,000 million a year so that it can play a major role in creating jobs and investment".
Just imagine the effect which that commitment of £1,000 million a year of Government money for selective investment in British industry will have on public confidence and overseas confidence in sterling. Before the House rises for the Whitsun Recess it is imperative that the Government Front Bench should repudiate that commitment.
The third part of the joint statement which should be repudiated by the Government is this:
The Liaison Committee re-asserts its belief in the value of subsidies in helping to keep down the price of essential goods. Special help should be given without means test to assist in the payment of sharply increased fuel bills. The continuation of food subsidies is the major priority in the coming three years.
That statement is hostile to the true interests of Britain and to the strength of sterling and is in direct opposition to the declared policy of the Government, for in the Government's White Paper on Public Expenditure—not, it is true, greeted with universal acclaim below the Gangway—the Government said that they were proposing to reduce food subsidies over the coming three years. Yet in the statement issued yesterday by the TUC and the Labour Party Liaison Committee precisely the opposite commitment is entered into. It is the Government's declared policy to phase out subsidies to the gas and electricity industries. Yet in the statement issued yesterday there is a commitment between the Labour Party and the TUC to repudiate the policies being followed by the Government. That, again, will lead to a further crisis of confidence in sterling.
The fourth commitment in the statement which should be repudiated by the Government is this:
The Liaison Committee do not accept the argument that price controls inhibit investment.
I wonder whom the TUC and the Liaison Committee consulted before reaching that dramatic conclusion, for no person engaged in business or industry would accept the proposition that price control

does not inhibit investment. It has done so in the most dramatic way, and price control is one reason why British industry is so seriously short of capital.
The fifth and last part of the statement to which I wish to draw the attention of the House is this:
We believe that there should be a clear commitment to early legislation to introduce a wealth tax during the 1976–1977 Session.
That, again, is in direct opposition to the Chancellor of the Exchequer's policy. What effect will that commitment have on foreign holders of sterling and people who might be inclined to lend money to Government?

Mr. J. W. Rooker: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The hon. Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Gow) is about to refer to the Government's borrowing money from abroad. Is it in order for him to make the speech which he is shortly due to make on a Ten-Minute Bill?

Mr. Gow: The hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker) has not heard the speech I shall make later, and he should not say that it will be the same. It will be a different speech and I hope that the hon. Gentleman will be here to listen to it and judge for himself.
It is high time that the Minister who is to reply to the debate repudiated the statement issued jointly by the Government and their paymasters in the TUC. Statements of that kind do great damage to foreign confidence in sterling and to public confidence in the Government's ability to overcome the serious economic dangers which face our country. I hope that the Minister will repudiate each of the five quotations which I read to the House.

9.5 p.m.

Mr. Ron Thomas: I should like to follow the speech of the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Gow).

Mr. Russell Kerr: My hon. Friend must be crazy.

Mr. Thomas: The hon. Member for Eastbourne was supporting strengthening the National Enterprise Board and demanding all kinds of measures and policies to regenerate British industry. I


want to add to his words in terms of the increasing and serious penetration of imports of finished and semi-finished manufactured goods into Britain. The House should not adjourn until it has had an opportunity to examine that situation.
We should not adjourn until we have had time to look also at the outflow of capital and the problems caused by our balance of payments. We should not adjourn until we have had time to examine in detail the activities of those who have been responsible recently for selling Britain short and speculating against our currency.
I shall first take the subject of the penetration of finished and semi-finished manufactured goods. Last year our import bill was about £26,000 million. Almost half of that was accounted for by finished and semi-finished manufactured goods. If we take from that sum the cost of our fuel imports, which clearly distorts the figures, and compare today's import penetration of 50 per cent. with the situation 10 years ago, we find that in 1966 the percentage of imports of finished and semi-finished manufactured goods in our total import bill was only about 30 per cent. The penetration therefore has almost doubled in a decade. [Interruption.]

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. It would be convenient if the House could hear what the hon. Member for Bristol, North-West (Mr. Thomas) is saying.

Mr. Thomas: Faced with this serious import penetration across the whole of the British manufacturing industry, there are those who insist that some kind of managed devaluation or inflation can deal with it. But there are many hon. Members on this side who reject either of those remedies or a combination of them. We ask the Government seriously to consider bringing in defined policies for planning trade and the balance of payments. We urge them to stop the export of capital from Britain and to marshal our overseas assets to protect sterling.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

9.10 p.m.

Mr. Foot: Perhaps the House will permit me to intervene again briefly so that we may make some progress with the arrangements.
Representations were made to Mr. Speaker earlier in our proceedings about the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Bill, and Mr. Speaker gave an undertaking that he would listen to those representations and make a statement later.
I have had some consultations with Mr. Speaker on the matter. What t e wishes to do—and we concur—is to make a statement about it when we meet at the beginning of business tomorrow. In the light of that, the Government say that it would clearly be wrong for us to try to proceed with the Bill tonight. Therefore, we suggest that the House should meet tomorrow and hear what conclusions Mr. Speaker has reached and what advice he gives to the House on the matter.
In the meantime, I suggest that the best service the House can do to all concerned is to conclude this debate, which has clearly gone on for as long as everybody in the House wishes. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I understand that some hon. Members still wish to speak, but whether others wish to listen is another matter. I have certainly listened to enough of it. I have listened to more than pretty well any other dozen Members put together.
I think that what I suggest is the best way in which to proceed. Therefore, I hope that the House will soon vote on the motion before it, on which we have already had an extensive discussion.

Mr. Peyton: I should like to mention that one of my hon. Friends has a Ten-Minute Bill—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The right hon. Gentleman has addressed the House once. He should ask for leave to speak again.

Mr. Peyton: I beg your pardon, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I was under the impression that the Leader of the House was addressing the House on a point of order, and I thought that I was doing the same.
With the leave of the House, I should like the right hon. Gentleman to consider the position of my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Gow), who has a Ten-Minute Bill.
Secondly, may I say without irony that I congratulate the Government on having reached a very sensible conclusion, which we wholly accept?

Mr. Foot: I am very glad that the right hon. Gentleman wholly accepts it. I hope that his hon. Friends accept it also.
It would be a bit churlish of the Government not to allow the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Gow) to make his Ten-Minute Bill proposition, even though we may vote against it. Anyway, we shall see what the hon. Gentleman has to say. But I suggest that we bring this part of our discussion to an end.

Mr. Walter Harrison (Treasurer of the Household): rose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now put.

Question, That the Question be now put,put and agreed to

Question put accordingly and agreed to.

Resolved,
That this House at its rising on Friday do adjourn till Monday 7th June.

CONTROL OF GOVERNMENT BORROWING

9.13 p.m.

Mr. Ian Gow: I beg to Move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to ensure effective parliamentary control of Government borrowing.
There is widespread concern inside and outside Parliament about the extent to which the Executive is no longer subject to effective parliamentary control. Nowhere is this dangerous trend more obvious, and nowhere more welcomed by the Government, than in the Treasury.
Section 12 of the National Loans Act 1968 provides that the Government may borrow any money that they require
in such manner and on such terms and conditions as the Treasury think fit
and without the approval of this House.
Subsection (3) goes on to state in the clearest terms:
For the avoidance of doubt it is hereby declared that the power to raise money under this section extends to raising money either within or outside the United Kingdom and either in sterling or any other currency or medium or exchange, whether national or international.
Effective parliamentary control over the Treasury, with its star-studded cast of

faceless double firsts—and with Lord Kaldor, as special adviser to the Chancellor of the Exchequer—is desirable at all times. But the case for the House to have control over Government borrowing has never been stronger than it is today.
Between 31st March 1966 and 31st March 1976 the total public sector debt rose from £38,000 million to £70,000 million. In those 10 years, therefore, public sector debt virtually doubled—an increase of £32,000 million in that decade. In the 10 preceding years, from 1956 to 1966, by contrast, public sector debt had risen by only £6,000 million. The figure for interest on the public sector debt increased from £1,592 million in 196667 to an estimated £6,200 million in the current year.
Even if that estimate turns out to be right—and all the signs are that the figure is too modest—the amount of interest on Government debt will have almost quadrupled in 10 years, while the amount of the debt itself has nearly doubled. The Chancellor of the Exchequer told the House during his Budget Statement on 6th April that he was proposing this year to borrow £12,000 million.

Mr. Giles Shaw: Too much.

Mr. Gow: My hon. Friend may well say "Too much". That is £1,000 million a month, £250 million a week, £35 million a day, £1⅓ million an hour, £22,831 a minute, and £381 a second. That is what the Government are borrowing, and all this without so much as an affirmative resolution from the House.
If this Bill were to become law, the Government would have to come back to the House for authority to borrow for each tranche of £500 million, in the same way that parliamentary approval is required for the borrowing by the nationalised industries, or for money for the National Enterprise Board.
In his rather discreditable letter to the Chairman of the International Monetary Fund on 18th December last, the Chancellor of the Exchequer wrote as follows:
An essential element of the Government's economic strategy will be a continuing and substantial reduction in the public sector borrowing requirement.
Alas, events have falsified those brave words. On the contrary, even since December of last year the Government


have been proposing to borrow even more.
In his ministerial broadcast on the same day that he was appointed Prime Minister, on 5th April the Prime Minister, speaking as First Lord of the Treasury as well as Prime Minister, said:
We are still not earning the standard of living we are enjoying. We are only keeping up the standards by borrowing, and this cannot go on indefinitely.
The tragedy is that, despite the promises of the Chancellor of the Exchequer and of the Prime Minister, the borrowing goes on—and it goes on without the consent of Parliament.
This escalating burden of Government debt is the prime cause of the continuing decline in the exernal value of our currency. No amount of talk by the Chancellor of the Exchequer about an economic miracle, no so-called deal between the Government and the unions, no anodyne statements from the TUC-Labour Party Liaison Committee, will result in a revival of foreign confidence in sterling. An essential prerequisite of that revival is a dramatic reduction in Government expenditure, a return to a balanced Budget and an end to living on tick.
This Bill has a twin purpose. It is to re-asssert the supremacy of the House of Commons over borrowing by the Treasury, and it is an attempt to halt the disastrous slide towards national bankruptcy which borrowing on this scale inevitably involves.

9.20 p.m.

Mr. Ron Thomas: I rise to oppose the Bill. The speech of the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Gow) reminded me very much of the speeches of either Pitt or Gladstone—on reflection, pre-Gladstone—and it would have been relevant in the age in which, we understand, they used to count up the ends of the candles before the Chancellor went home in the evening.
The terms of the words on the Order Paper talking about "effective parliamentary control" are really a cloak to attack the level of the public sector borrowing requirement and, behind that, I suspect, to attack the level of public

expenditure. That is what the Bill is all about, so let us be quite clear. Indeed, the hon. Member spent most of his time talking about the PSBR. He suggested that the level of the PSBR was responsible for the recent speculation against sterling. Yet a number of our competitor countries have a similar level of PSBR as a proportion of their national income and they are not subject to such speculation against their currencies. I suggest that hon. Members should check the currencies of the United States, West Germany and one or two other countries.
Secondly, there was no mention of the fact that a considerable proportion of public expenditure goes on capital investment in the publicly owned industries. Almost half of the gross domestic capital formation is in the public sector. When Imperial Chemical Industries decides that it wants to borrow £200 million for new capital investment, Opposition Members all cheer. However, if we borrow £200 million, or whatever, to meet the capital investment requirements of the publicly owned industries, they say that that is all wrong.
Furthermore, the hon. Gentleman did not mention the indefensible capitalist system in which we live, in which we are paying out between £3,000 million and £4,000 million to keep 1½ million people unemployed. That is a very important chunk of the PSBR. When the hon. Gentleman spoke of the PSBR he forgot to mention, of course, the interest on it. That argument has also been used by the Opposition Front Bench. But we know that a great deal of the interest payable on the PSBR comes back in taxation of one kind or another—and some of us think that it should be a lot more.
The Bill, therefore, is an attack on the PSBR and on public expenditure. What Opposition Members want to do is to cut back public expenditure, to increase unemployment, and to cut the social wage—we know that that is about the only thing that unites the Tory Party on these occasions—but of course, they want to spend more on defence.
Labour Members oppose the Bill.

Question put, pursuant to Standing Order No. 13 (Motions for leave to bring


in Bills and nomination of Select Committees at commencement of Public Business):—

The House divided: Ayes 172, Noes. 191.

Division No. 154.]
AYES
[9.24 p.m.


Adley, Robert
Hayhoe, Barney
Pattie, Geoffrey


Aitken, Jonathan
Heseltine, Michael
Penhaligon, David


Arnold, Tom
Hicks, Robert
Peyton, Rt Hon John


Atkins, Rt Hon H. (Spelthorne)
Holland, Philip
Pink, R. Bonner


Bain, Mrs Margaret
Hooson, Emlyn
Price, David (Eastleigh)


Beith, A. J.
Howell, David (Guildford)
Pym, Rt Hon Francis


Bennett, Dr Reginald (Fareham)
Howells, Geraint (Cardigan)
Raison, Timothy


Benyon, W.
Hunt, David (Wirral)
Reid, George


Berry, Hon Anthony
Hunt, John
Renton, Tim (Mid-Sussex)


Biffen, John
Hutchison, Michael Clark
Ridsdale, Julian


Biggs-Davison, John
James, David
Rippon, Rt Hon Geoffrey


Boscawen, Hon Robert
Johnson Smith, G. (E Grinstead)
Roberts, Michael (Cardiff NW)


Boyson, Or Rhodes (Brent)
Jopling, Michael
Roberts, Wyn (Conway)


Bradford, Rev Robert
Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith
Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)


Brotherton, Michael
Kilfedder, James
Ross, William (Londonderry)


Bryan, Sir Paul
King, Evelyn (South Dorset)
Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)


Buchanan-Smith, Alick
King, Tom (Bridgwater)
Scott, Nicholas


Bulmer, Esmond
Kitson, Sir Timothy
Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)


Butler, Adam (Bosworth)
Latham, Michael (Melton)
Shepherd, Colin


Carlisle, Mark
Lawrence, Ivan
Silvester, Fred


Carson, John
Lawson, Nigel
Sims, Roger


Chalker, Mrs Lynda
Le Marchant, Spencer
Sinclair, Sir George


Churchill, W. S.
Lester, Jim (Beeston)
Skeet, T. H. H.


Clark, Alan (Plymouth, Sutton)
Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)
Smith, Cyril (Rochdale)


Cooke, Robert (Bristol W)
Lloyd, Ian
Smith, Dudley (Warwick)


Cope, John
MacCormick, Iain
Speed, Keith


Cormack, Patrick
McCusker, H.
Spence, John


Corrie, John
Macfarlane, Neil
Spicer, Michael (S Worcester)


Crawford, Douglas
MacGregor, John
Sproat, Iain


Dean, Paul (N Somerset)
McNair-Wilson, M. (Newbury)
Stainton, Keith


du Cann, Rt Hon Edward
Marshall, Michael (Arundel)
Stan brook, Ivor


Dunlop, John
Marten, Neil
Steel, David (Roxburgh)


Edwards, Nicholas (Pembroke)
Maude, Angus
Steen, Anthony (Wavertree)


Elliott, Sir William
Mawby, Ray
Stewart, Donald (Western Isles)


Emery, Peter
Meyer, Sir Anthony
Stradling Thomas, J.


Evans, Gwynfor (Carmarthen)
Miller, Hal (Bromsgrove)
Tapsell, Peter


Eyre, Reginald
Mills, Peter
Taylor, Teddy (Cathcart)


Fairgrieve, Russell
Miscampbell, Norman
Tebbit, Norman


Farr, John
Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)
Thatcher, Rt Hon Margaret


Fell, Anthony
Molyneaux, James
Thomas, Dafydd (Merioneth)


Fookes, Miss Janet
Monro, Hector
Thomas, Rt Hon P. (Hendon S)


Forman, Nigel
Montgomery, Fergus
Thompson, George


Fowler, Norman (Sutton C'f'd)
Moore, John (Croydon C)
Trotter, Neville


Fox, Marcus
Morgan, Geraint
van Straubenzee, W. R.


Freud, Clement
Morgan-Giles, Rear-Admiral
Walder, David (Clitheroe)


Fry, Peter
Morris, Michael (Northampton S)
Wall, Patrick


Gardiner, George (Reigate)
Morrison, Charles (Devizes)
Warren, Kenneth


Gardner, Edward (S Fylde)
Morrison, Hon Peter (Chester)
Watt, Hamish


Gilmour, Sir John (East Fife)
Mudd, David
Weatherill, Bernard


Godber, Rt Hon Joseph
Neave, Airey
Welsh, Andrew


Goodhew, Victor
Nelson, Anthony
Wigley, Dafydd


Gorst, John
Neubert, Michael
Wilson, Gordon (Dundee E)


Gower, Sir Raymond (Barry)
Newton, Tony
Young, Sir G. (Ealing, Acton)


Grant, Anthony (Harrow C)
Nott, John
Younger, Hon George


Gray, Hamish
Onslow, Cranley



Grimond, Rt Hon J.
Page, Rt Hon R. Graham (Crosby)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Grylls, Michael
Paisley, Rev Ian
Mr. Ian Gow and


Hall, Sir John
Pardoe, John
Mr.Nicholas Ridley


Harvie Anderson, Rt Hon Miss
Parkinson, Cecil





NOES


Abse, Leo
Bottomley, Rt Hon Arthur
Conlan, Bernard


Armstrong, Ernest
Boyden, James (Bish Auck)
Cook, Robin F. (Edin C)


Ashton, Joe
Bradley, Tom
Cronin, John


Atkins, Ronald (Preston N)
Brown, Hugh D. (Provan)
Crosland, Rt Hon Anthony


Atkinson, Norman
Brown, Robert C. (Newcastle W)
Cryer, Bob


Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)
Buchan, Norman
Cunningham, Dr J. (Whiteh)


Barnett, Rt Hon Joel (Heywood)
Callaghan, Rt Hon J. (Cardiff SE)
Davies, Bryan (Enfield N)


Bates, Alf
Campbell, Ian
Davies, Ifor (Gower)


Benn, Rt Hon Anthony Wedgwood
Carmichael, Neil
Davis, Clinton (Hackney C)


Bennett, Andrew (Stockport N)
Cartwright, John
Deakins, Eric


Bidwell, Sydney
Clemitson, Ivor
Dempsey, James


Blenkinsop, Arthur
Cocks, Michael (Bristol S)
Doig, Peter


Boardman, H.
Cohen, Stanley
Dormand, J. D.


Booth, Rt Hon Albert
Coleman, Donald
Douglas-Mann, Bruce




Duffy, A. E. P.
Jones, Dan (Burnley)
Rodgers, George (Chorley)


Edge, Geoff
Kerr, Russell
Rooker, J. W.


Ellis, John (Brigg &amp; Scun)
Kilroy-Silk, Robert
Roper, John


Ennals, David
Lambie, David
Rose, Paul B.


Evans, Fred (Caerphilly)
Lamborn, Harry
Ross, Rt Hon W. (Kilmarnock)


Evans, Ioan (Aberdare)
Lamond, James
Rowlands, Ted


Ewing Harry (Stirling)
Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)
Sandelson, Neville


Faulds, Andrew
Litterick, Tom
Selby, Harry


Fernyhough, Rt Hon E.
Loyden, Eddie
Sheldon, Robert (Ashton-u-Lyne)


Fitch, Alan (Wigan)
Luard, Evan
Shore, Rt Hon Peter


Flannery, Martin
Lyons, Edward (Bradford W)
Short, Mrs Renée (Wolv NE)


Fletcher, Raymond (Ilkeston)
Mabon, Dr J. Dickson
Silkin, Rt Hon S. C. (Dulwich)


Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)
McCartney, Hugh
Skinner, Dennis


Foot, Rt Hon Michael
McElhone, Frank
Small, William


Fowler, Gerald (The Wrekin)
MacFarquhar, Roderick
Smith, John (N Lanarkshire)


Freeson, Reginald
McGuire, Michael (Ince)
Snape, Peter


Garrett, John (Norwich S)
Mackenzie, Gregor
Spriggs, Leslie


George, Bruce
Mackintosh, John P.
Stallard, A. W.


Ginsburg, David
Maclennan, Robert
Stoddart, David


Golding, John
McMillan, Tom (Glasgow C)
Stott, Roger


Gould, Bryan
McNamara, Kevin
Strang, Gavin


Gourlay, Harry
Madden, Max
Summerskill, Hon Dr Shirley



Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)
Taylor, Mrs Ann (Bolton W)


Graham, Ted
Maynard, Miss Joan
Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)


Grant, George (Morpeth)
Mikardo, Ian
Thomas, Ron (Bristol NW)


Grant, John (Islington C)
Moonman, Eric
Tierney, Sydney


Grocott, Bruce
Moyle, Roland
Tinn, James


Hamilton, James (Bothwell)
Mulley, Rt Hon Frederick
Tomney, Frank


Hardy, Peter
Murray, Rt Hon Ronald King
Urwin, T. W.


Harper, Joseph
Newens, Stanley
Varley, Rt Hon Eric G.


Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)
Noble, Mike
Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne V)


Hart, Rt Hon Judith
Oakes, Gordon
Walden, Brian (B'ham, L'dyw'd)


Hatton, Frank
O'Halloran, Michael
Walker, Harold (Doncaster)


Heffer, Eric S.
Orbach, Maurice
Walker, Terry (Kingswood)


Hooley, Frank
Ovenden, John
Weetch, Ken


Howell, Rt Hon Denis
Owen, Dr David
Weitzman, David


Hoyle, Doug (Nelson)
Padley, Walter
Wellbeloved, James


Huckfield, Les
Palmer, Arthur
White, Frank R. (Bury)


Hughes, Rt Hon C. (Anglesey)
Park, George
Whitlock, William


Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)
Parker, John
Willey, Rt Hon Frederick


Hunter, Adam
Pavitt, Laurie
Williams, Alan (Swansea W)


Irvine, Rt Hon Sir A. (Edge Hill)
Peart, Rt Hon Fred
Williams, Alan Lee (Hornch'ch)


Irving, Rt Hon S. (Dartford)
Pendry, Tom
Wilson, Alexander (Hamilton)


Jackson, Colin (Brighouse)
Perry, Ernest
Wilson, William (Coventry SE)


Jackson, Miss Margaret (Lincoln)
Price, William (Rugby)
Wise, Mrs Audrey


Janner, Greville
Richardson, Miss Jo
Woof, Robert


Jay, Rt Hon Douglas
Roberts, Albert (Normanton)
Wrigglesworth, Ian


Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)
Roberts, Gwilvm (Cannock)
Young, David (Bolton E)


John, Brynmor
Robertson, John (Paisley)
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Johnson, James (Hull West)
Robinson, Geoffrey
Mr. Dennis Canavan and Mr. Stan Thorne.


Jones, Barry (East Flint)
Roderick, Caerwyn

Question accordingly negatived.

SHEFFIELD AND SOUTH YORKSHIRE NAVIGATION CANAL

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Bates.]

9.37 p.m.

Mr. Peter Hardy: I was somewhat surprised to learn a few moments ago that this debate would take place at a rather more civilised hour than I had expected. The subject deserves consideration at a sensible hour because it is an important matter for South Yorkshire.
I have been interested in the Sheffield and South Yorkshire Navigation Canal since before entering this House, when I

was involved in local government in South Yorkshire. The scheme submitted in 1967–68 was rather more ambitious than that currently under consideration. I thought it was a good idea, but it did not succeed.

However, the scheme submitted during the period of the last Conservative Government was a splendid one and it is before the Minister now. It was supported by the people of South Yorkshire when it was first submitted and they still support it today. We were very angry when the Conservative Government took a view which we regarded as absolutely absurd. They attempted to abolish the British Waterways Board—an attempt which we regarded as ludicrous—and tried to demand that the board should give concrete guarantees of the increases in tonnage from each of the users of the canal


over a 10-year period. No commercial organisation can give firm guarantees about what it will be doing in 10 years' time. That is an unreasonable proposition.

I was glad that we criticised it when in opposition and I hope that there will be no attempt to impose similar guarantees now that we are in government. Like most people in South Yorkshire, I believe in consistency in politics as far as possible and we tend to be realistic and consistent.

The scheme for the improvement of the canal is a very good one. I hope that the questions which I shall ask the Minister will receive satisfactory replies. We were extremely grateful for the Minister's visit to the area, during which he went sailing on the canal. He will have realised that along the banks on the northern part of the area of the canal, which it is proposed to modernise and improve, there is a great deal of dereliction, both in my constituency and in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Dearne Valley (Mr. Wainwright). The scheme would involve a considerable improvement to the environment.

I ask my hon. Friend about the calculations which the Department of the Environment has carried out. How much has it put down in its valuation for the environmental factor? That is an important factor. As I have said, in Yorkshire we are realistic. We cannot expect the Government to put in a great deal of money merely to improve our environment. There has to be a commercial attraction. I hope to re-emphasise and underline the real commercial atractions which the navigation offers to my area and the country.

I think that the Department has taken an excessively cautious and pessimistic view in its consideration of the facts and the traffic which the new canal would carry. That can best be illustrated by the position of the steel industry. Only today I have spoken to Sir Monty Finniston about the bar mill in my constituency. I am proud of the mill. I am very pleased with it because it represents the sort of priority and the sort of investment which Britain has to carry out. The bar mill, which is about to

operate at full force, is highly competitive. It is confidently expected in the steel industry that it can compete successfully with anything else of its kind in the world. Sir Monty believes that it will be the most successful steel industry unit of its kind.

Anyone who doubts my comments need only look at the commercial success of the Rotherham area of the British Steel Corporation, the most successful area within the country. It has a record of sustained success. Over the past few months it has broken output records week by week. The Rotherham area, with a successful record behind it is confident that the bar mill can be a tremendous success. It is expected that from my area of Thrybergh it will be sending 200,000 tons of steel bars a year into Europe, and another 200,000 tons to North America.

It is logical to assume—the corporation and others in my locality have analysed the matter—that the most effective and economic form of transportation should be used. That is why the corporation wants to convey 400,000 tons of steel bars on the canal. If it is to do so, the improvement will have to take place.

The savings from transporting the steel bars on the canal would amount to £3 a ton. Without that advantage the mill can be a tremendous success, but with that advantage it could be a world beater. I want to see my constituency and the surrounding areas given the chance to justify the investment which the corporation has put into this huge mill, and the modest investment which we in South Yorkshire urge the Government to approve for the canal modernisation.

The British steel industry is not entirely occupied by the public sector. In South Yorkshire there is a thriving private sector. Both that sector and the BSC are anxious about the increasing problem of scrap shortage. There are already problems about scrap supply, and we have not yet got over the recession.

I am anxious to ensure that as we surmount the difficulties, and as other parts of the corporation in addition to the Rotherham works begin to increase their working hours and the number of shifts worked a week, we do not find ourselves held back by an appalling shortage of scrap steel. I have spoken about this


matter in the House in recent weeks so I shall not labour the point. It is likely to be a cause for delay and disappointment, and it is one that needs to be avoided. If we can avoid it in the months ahead we cannot do so in the long term. There have been too many mini-mills and are furnace developments for that. The pressure on scrap is very serious. For that reason it is obvious that during the next few years we shall have to substitute iron for scrap. For that reason, there is now a proposition that Britain should be reducing iron ore and bringing it to replace scrap metal in some inland steel areas. I hope that that will apply in South Yorkshire.

There is a real prospect that we shall have to bring in about 500,000 tons of either pelletised iron ore or sponge iron to the private steels, and most of that will be taken up in the South Yorkshire area. The most economic way of transporting that huge quantity of scrap substitute is by canal. But if we are to carry out that economic activity, the canal will have to be modernised. I suggest that to guarantee sustained operation in our steel industry, whether public or private, the small amount of money involved in the modernisation of this canal is entirely justified.

I remind the Minister, although I am aware that he knows a good deal about the factual basis, that the British Waterways Board will have to spend a lot of money in any case. If the canal is to remain as it is—a reluctant memorial to small-scale industry of the past—the British Waterways Board will have to spend about £1½ million to carry out its obligations and arrears of maintenance. If it downgrades the canal so that it offers no value to South Yorkshire, the board will have to spend over £1,100,000 to carry out its obligations, but it can modernise the canal for an additional £4·3 million.

I cannot understand why there has been delay, nor can the organisations in South Yorkshire which have examined the matter calmly, fairly and dispassionately. When my right hon. Friend came to Rotherham we believed that we had put before him a formidable and, indeed, unanswerable case. I do not think that he had an unfavourable view. But it seems that the calculations of our bureaucracy

compel Ministers to take a dismal and unfavourable view.

I am not an accountant, but I understand that we do not apply the same accountancy procedures to all methods of communication. For example, roads costs are written off in the year in which they are incurred. There is no interest on capital. But in the case of the British Waterways Board, investment has to be repaid over 25 years at the going interest rate. I believe that we should be consistent and logical. We should apply the same basis of accountancy procedure regardless of the form of transport communication that we are considering. Roads are heavily favoured. I am not opposed to roads, but I am in favour of sensible use of effective transportation, and the type of transportation will be that which is best in the circumstances.

We already have a canal. All we need to make that canal a navigable waterway to give the industrial area of Yorkshire an immediate link with huge markets in Europe, and perhaps trans-shipment to other continents, is reasonable generosity. If the Government were prepared to be generous, I should not object to a different system of assessment and accountancy procedures being applied to one form of transport as opposed to another.

The Government's transport policy document explains the arrangements for roads, but it does not go into detail about the arrangements for either railways or waterways. That is a pity.

My right hon. Friend will correct me if I am wrong, but I understand that the rate of return which these accountancy methods would place upon the British Waterways Board would be 15 per cent. From the calculations which have been given to me, I suspect that the British Waterways Board, on the figures that the Department of the Environment is prepared to accept, could achieve a rate of return of 13 per cent. Unfortunately, the figures which the Department of the Environment appears willing to accept seem to be excessively cautious—almost unforgivably cautious, if I may speak as a Member of Parliament for the area affected.

My right hon. Friend may well believe that the potential traffic which will be generated from Park Gate from the


British Steel Corporation would be 100,000 tons, yet this afternoon it was confirmed to me by the Chairman of the Corporation that a potential of 400,000 tons is realistic. I know the capacity of the bar mill. British Steel Corporation is not given to exaggeration. I believe that its assessments are reasonable. There are other potential forms of freight traffic available to us.

I know that my right hon. Friend is concerned to see a decent environment. He will appreciate that of all the areas of Britain only one at present is creating more derelict land than it is clearing. That area is in the southern part of Yorkshire. I do not refer only to the South Yorkshire Metropolitan County, because there are areas of West Yorkshire that also create difficulties. In my area we have hundreds of acres of derelict land. The South Yorkshire County Council, that splendid authority, is carrying out an imaginative programme of land clearance. But if we are to shift some of this colliery spoil, we should realise that it could be shifted most economically by water.

The cost of shifting that spoil is often the biggest obstacle to its removal. Therefore, anything that prevents, discourages or deters us from improving our environment is offensive. The canals could play a part in carrying substantial tonnages of colliery spoil in an inexpensive way, which would make it possible to carry by that means many more tons than might otherwise be possible.

Adjoining my area in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Dearne Valley are large areas of limestone quarries. I know that the Steetley Quarry organisation will be happy to have its stone transported in huge quantities by canal because it would represent a saving of several pounds per ton over any other form of transportation.

Therefore, we believe that we have identified real prospects for improving freight traffic. I do not believe that the estimates which have been given to the Department of the Environment are overoptimistic. In an answer given to me by the Department only a few days ago, I was told that only 1·5 million tons of these materials could be identified per year. I believe that that is a gross under

estimate. I believe that the traffic forecasts in the posession of the British Waterways Board amount to a total of 2,460,000 tons per year—more than double the figure accepted by the Department as realistic. That would seem to me to justify giving a higher priority to this project that it currently enjoys.

I am not speaking purely for myself in this matter. On Friday last I saw the leader of the South Yorkshire County Council, Sir Ron Iremonger. He confirmed that his authority continued to be passionately in favour of this scheme—so much so that it is prepared to back it with finance. It is prepared to give every possible assistance because it believes the scheme is in the essential interests of the area.

The same is true of the Rotherham Borough Council, which acted as host for the meeting at the Rotherham Town Hall attended by my right hon. Friend. Again, the same goes for the Doncaster Metropolitan Authority and all the smaller authorities in the areas involved. The concern goes right across the board into chambers of trade and chambers of commerce in the area, which are all strongly in favour of the project. Support has been expressed by the British Steel Corporation, the National Coal Board and private industry, particularly the Independent Steel Producers Association, which has expressed itself in strong support.

Furthermore, there has been support for the project from the Labour movement. The regional conference of the Labour Party has expressed strong approval for this scheme. The trade unions in Sheffield and Rotherham support the proposal, as do the Yorkshire trade councils and their associated bodies. I am sure that one would have to go a long way in South Yorkshire to find somebody who was not convinced about the desirability of this project.

Therefore, I hope that my right hon. Friend will be prepared to give his blessing to this scheme. It may be that he will have difficulty in working out how he should apportion that part of the money of the Department of the Environment which can be spent on the matters for which he is responsible. But I believe that, if he is optimistic about Britain's future and if he agrees with me about the achievements of the area which I


represent, and of the areas around it, he will realise that we have made a tremendous contribution to the economic prosperity of Great Britain and that this canal gives us an opportunity to maintain and to improve that.

If my right hon. Friend cannot do that, we shall feel not merely disappointed but very angry, because it seems to us that we shall have been shackled by a bureaucracy and we shall be sad that it has had an excessive influence on my right hon. Friend.

We think that it is a very desirable scheme. No matter from which basis it is examined, we believe that the scheme should go forward. In my view, the potential over the next 10 years is immense. The cost of the lost opportunities since the Conservative Party made the sad mistake that it did two or three years ago in relation to the same scheme speaks for itself. It would have cost a couple of million pounds. It would already have been making the contribution which I hope that this scheme will make in a very short time.

9.56 p.m.

Mr. Giles Shaw: I am grateful to the Minister and to the hon. Member for Rother Valley (Mr. Hardy), even though I was not able to speak to him personally about it, for allowing me a couple of minutes to support him in this debate. As the Member for an industrial constituency in West Yorkshire, I am sure that he will not deny that a topic concerning canal transportation and the importance of the waterway system in South Yorkshire must also be related to the needs of the county as a whole and to its industrial benefits as a whole.
The Minister will be aware that in Yorkshire at the moment we have a keen discussion going on about transport policy. He will be aware, too, of the schemes which have been prepared for the extension of the MI motorway—a motorway which will affect my constituency substantially by driving the westerly route right through it. He will also know of the enormous costs involved—some £91 million—in the original estimate for the extension of the M1 from Kirkhamgate to Disham.
If the right hon. Gentleman sets that against the £4·3 million required for the development of the South Yorkshire Waterway, as so eloquently proposed by

the hon. Member for Rother Valley, he will recognise the concern that we in Yorkshire feel that the Government, without due consultation with local interests, both industrial and environmental, may arrive at decisions based upon extending national networks without sufficient examination of the peculiar regional requirements of West and South Yorkshire.
I urge upon the right hon. Gentleman that, when he and his Department look carefully at the proposals for the extension of motorways or for the extension and improvement of the canal system, he will recognise that, in sheer value for money, the £4·3 million required to improve the South Yorkshire Waterway system represents extreme value as opposed to the somewhat doubtful value of spending about £100 million on the motorway extension.
Secondly, I hope that the Minister will also consider whether employment will be safeguarded if we ignore the development of our natural assets of waterway systems and rail systems. It must be admitted that we in Yorkshire have some of the oldest industrial structures in the country. Many of us feel that a correct analysis of our rail system or, indeed, our waterway system has gone partially by default because—I admit this—previous Administrations have tended to set the contribution on one side—

It being Ten o'clock, the motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Bates.]

Mr. Shaw: The fact that this has been the case in the past is no excuse for the Minister to take a similar shortsighted view. I welcome the way in which the hon. Member for Rother Valley has put the case.
May I remind the Minister that many of us on this side of the House, representing Yorkshire constituencies, have asked for a transport commission which might examine the requirements of the region and the various modes of transport required. This has been repeatedly refused. I hope that the Minister, in his reply, will comment upon it. I would support the case for the extension of the South Yorkshire canal system because, in respect of


value for money, such a proposal ought to be accepted in preference to the simplistic extension of the motorway system with such great environmental damage which will result.

10.1 p.m.

Mr. Nigel Spearing: My hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Mr. Hardy) should be congratulated not only on the way in which he has presented an original case but also on the way in which he has gathered his facts. This case has gone on for a long time. It has been of interest not only to people in Yorkshire but also to those in the rest of the country who believe that there is a future in waterway navigation and who have been dissatisfied with what they regard as an anomaly in the way in which waterways, as distinct from roadways, are funded. In three debates in this House it has been extremely difficult to get at the root of this question, which has been well illustrated by my hon. Friend.
It is worth noting in passing that the Select Committee on Transport Investment in the last Parliament made a specific recommendation as to investment in waterways. This is something which has not yet been taken up. Perhaps as a result of the consultation paper, to which I shall return, this is now the time.
My hon. Friend drew attention to the basic difference between the calculations of capital returns on roadways and waterways. This is relevant to this particularly imaginative scheme. On 18th May I tried to get some information from the Department of the Environment. I asked the Minister in a Written Question to explain why he made a distinction between authorising and designating capital expenditure on roads and that of new waterways. The Minister for Transport replied:
New waterway construction for commercial purposes is appraised on the normal financial criteria applicable to nationalised industries generally, though social costs and benefits may in appropriate cases be taken into account.
I hope they are in the case of South Yorkshire.
Road schemes, for which a commercial test is inappropriate, are judged against cost-benefit criteria."—[Official Report, 18th May, 1976, Vol. 911, c. 458.]
This is a distinction of great importance. We all know that there is plenty of money for roads, but if one tried to

do a distinct calculation on the precise return one would find that there was no extra return on a specific road unless it was a toll road, because the vehicle licences are paid anyway so it is a net charge on what remains of the Road Fund and on the Exchequer. Roads cannot be calculated in that way. They go through a different system.
The fact that waterways sometimes had some of their own vessels—in other words, that a proprietor of the waterways had some craft on that waterway—is a historical accident. It is a historical accident that the British Waterways Board now runs certain craft on British waterways, because all sorts of other craft run in much the same way as happens on the road. The waterway can in many circumstances be compared with a roadway. There are private vessels and private cars; there are commercial barges, some owned by British Waterways, and commercial vehicles, some owned by British Road Services. There are private contractors on waterways and private haulage contractors on the roads, all using the common track.
We come back to the common problem of track cost and how it is paid for. Waterways have much more in common with the track costs of roads than those of railways. No one can put his private coach on a railway but he can put his private vessel on a waterway.
Now we come to the future. It may be that imaginative schemes such as that in South Yorkshire are not widespread. I am not saying that there is a big case for building new waterways, although we might investigate that in future, but there is a big case for improving existing waterways like South Yorkshire at relatively little cost but great advantage. What is overlooked is that waterways as track fulfil many more functions than just navigation—recreation, including fisheries and generally lolling by the waterside, industrial water supply, flood control, water cooling for power stations, land drainage and irrigation for farmers in the summer. We know how important the last has been in South-East England, particularly in the last two years. There is also the bulk transfer of water from one catchment area to another. I would not claim hydro-electric power, because the quantities are so small, but there are possibilities of pump storage.
So waterways can, and do in many parts of the world, fulfil a variety of purposes. One has only to think of the Tennessee Valley Authority. I do not think that the present Government will wish to be behind the American Government of 1934, or whenever it was that Franklin Roosevelt introduced that multipurpose water scheme, but that is what they are by applying the financial criteria they use. If ever there was a case for applying positive cost-benefit analysis, surely it is on waterways because of their multi-purpose use. The Government, for reasons best known to themselves, do not apply it to waterways but they do to roads, which is quite illogical.
Finally, let us consider the ways in which cost-benefit analysis has been applied in the past to construction of track—not water track but rail track. It was the Conservative Government of Mr. Macmillan under the well-known Minister of Transport, Mr. Marples, who constructed a railway which it was known would lose money from the day it opened, on straight calculations, never mind the interest. One of the good things that Mr. Marples did was let the Victoria Line go ahead, because cost-benefit analysis showed that it would benefit London.
Am I to understand that although a Tory Minister of Transport over 15 years ago could construct the Victoria Line, a Labour Department of the Environment today will not allow the South Yorkshire Navigation to be constructed on the same sort of financial criteria? I can hardly believe that. But if that is what the Minister will tell us tonight, I hope that it is not the end of the story.
These are the crucial points which lie behind the whole of the South Yorkshire Navigation controversy and the way in which the Treasury, perhaps—I do not know how far the Treasury has a finger in the pie, but I should be surprised if it does not—fails to distinguish between capital for multi-purpose transport, agriculture and recreational purposes which are most suited to the cost-benefit analysis. Railways are much more suitable to the capital return analysis which the Government insist must be applied to waterways.
Therefore, although I do not expect that my hon. Friend will be converted tonight—although I know that he is willing to be converted in this matter—I hope that, as a result of the practical example produced by my hon. Friend and the strong case that there is for the South Yorkshire Navigation, we shall hear some words of encouragement which will allow those of us interested in this vital matter to see our way forward. I believe that in the construction and improvement of waterways the Government would not only get the wholehearted consent of those who use them for recreation and navigation, but would appeal to the imagination of the British people as a whole, who want to see projects of this kind imaginatively conceived and carried out.

10.10 p.m.

The Minister of State for Sport and Recreation (Mr. Denis Howell): I am most grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Mr. Hardy) and other hon. Members who have spoken rather passionately on this subject this evening. I certainly do not object to that, because I conceive it to be part of my duty as Minister responsible for water resources to encourage a degree of passion about the subject, and to encourage the building up of an informed opinion throughout the country about the importance of our canal system and of getting a national network of canals. That will come about only when people understand the historical significance of our canal system and appreciate that in these changing days a system built up for the Industrial Revolution as a method of transportation can now have an entirely new purpose in recreational and leisure terms.
I do not object to anything that has been said along those lines and I am well aware of the fact that the more I encourage amentity organisations to make noises of that kind, the more often my hon. Friends will get up and press me on this subject. At the conclusion of my remarks I shall return to this point and to the Government's general proposals for dealing with the future of the canal system, and particularly for retaining it as a national entity, and a proposal to create an inland waterways national navigation authority. But, however much any of us wish to move in this direction, we


are having at this time to judge every proposal for spending public money and for public borrowing to finance public works against very strict criteria.
Hardly an hour goes by in this Parliament when we do not have our financial affairs vigorously examined around the world, with the total cost of public borrowing a matter of national concern. There is hardly a moment in the House when these aspects are not brought before us.
I must say at once to my hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley, who knows that I am sympathetic to his cause, that there could not be a less propitious moment for us to be considering this matter. That is one reason why I shall come back at the end of my remarks to my view on how this whole question ought to be determined in future. I entirely agree with my hon. Friend on the history of this project. The proposal was first put forward in 1966 and rejected by the then Minister. The British Waterways Board continued to work on it and put in a new application in 1972. Successive Governments have been considering it since.
I want to say a word on the basis of assessment. I must tell my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) that he is not right to say that we apply a different cost benefit analysis to canal considerations from those we apply to the road system. The principles we apply—and I shall tell the House how we have computed the figures and how we have done our arithmetic in this case—are exactly the same.
It is true that the techniques differ, but they have to do so because the road system is free and there are no tolls. When we come to compute the cost of canals, within that computation we have to allow for the tolls that will be paid by the users. That does not apply to the road system and, therefore, the two systems are not entirely on a parallel line. We apply the same principle of cost benefit analysis as with the road programmes.
The basic requirement for all public investment is that it should show a return in excess of 10 per cent. in real terms for low-risk projects. That is the criterion which the Government apply. With higher risk projects the Government and

the Treasury require a higher rate of return than 10 per cent. to justify the higher risk to public investment. There is extreme uncertainty about the traffic which would be generated on the canal. I have no quarrel with the figures given by my hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley and I shall return to them.
On the figures available to us, on any calculation the canal would be a high-risk project. We should certainly look for more than a 10 per cent. return on the investment. The appraisal includes not only the financial return to British Waterways Board but also environmental benefits and side benefits to users, such as the British Steel Corporation, who would gain from cheaper, faster transport.
The total cost of the scheme for the Sheffield and South Yorkshire Navigation has been calculated at £5·4 million. That includes £1·5 million for arrears of maintenance, most of which would be necessary even if no improvement were to be made. The largest element within that £1·5 million is for the environmental improvement which my hon. Friends and everyone in South Yorkshire want.
We started our calculations by subtracting that £1·5 million from the £5·4 million, which leaves the net additional cost of improvements at about £4·3 million. That is the figure against which we have tested the return. This is public expenditure which can be financed only by borrowing from the Exchequer. It has been suggested that local authorities might put in money, but this would be for their own investment in, for example, new roads necessary to provide access.
The hon. Member for Pudsey (Mr. Shaw) waxed eloquent on the relationship between investment in roads and investment in canals. We must remember that canals do not go exactly where we want them to go. If we were to use the canal system more traffic would have to be taken there in the first place to secure anything like the return which the hon. Gentleman wants. There is no suggestion that the local authority would meet part of the cost of the scheme as distinct from the environmental improvements. Therefore, the financial returns have to be judged almost entirely on the calculation of the new traffic that would be generated.
The background of the steady decline in commercial traffic on waterways is a factor which must be in the Government's mind. Between 1969 and 1974 traffic fell by almost half. Twenty years ago traffic on the canal system was five times as great as it is now. The reasons for that are clear to us all. There has been a tremendous shift of traffic on to the roads, especially since the development of the motorway network. To some extent the same difficulty faces the railway system. In 1972 the British Waterways Board—

Mr. Hardy: Will my hon. Friend give way?

Mr. Howell: I should like to press on, as I am anxious to put the Government's thinking before the House. If I have time I shall give way at the end.
In 1972 the British Waterways Board consultants identified potential new traffic. I do not know why my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, South is so amused.

Mr. Spearing: If my hon. Friend gives way, I shall tell him. He has spent 20 minutes replying to the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley and I hope that he will now give way.

Mr. Howell: My hon. Friend the Member for Newham, South so exaggerates his arguments that it is impossible to take him seriously. I have been on my feet for 10 minutes, not 20 minutes.

Mr. Spearing: But my hon. Friend has 20 minutes in which to make his reply.

Mr. Howell: That just shows how unwise I was to give way. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley would have made a more relevant intervention.
In 1973 the board approached firms to identify traffic likely to be offered for tender. The Department's officials made direct inquiries of major users to try to assess how much they would actually use the waterway.
I am grateful for what my hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley said about my visit to the area, because it was after that and after I met the local authorities—to whom I pay tribute for their realism

and enthusiasm—that we did the sums again and made further specific inquiries of all the firms, including those about which we have heard tonight.
As a result of that—including 400,000 tons from the British Steel Corporation about which the chairman of that corporation wrote to me—the most optimistic figure that we could estimate was that new traffic would amount to 1·15 million tons over five years. That is the second essential ingredient in our calculation.
But that much tonnage, which is as much as we could get even after consulting all the organisations that have been mentioned, is not sufficient to produce an adequate return. In our calculations we threw in everything but the kitchen sink to produce the extra tonnage which we hoped the canal might attract in order to achieve an adequate rate of return. That is what we all wanted, but it was difficult. The Government reluctantly came to the conclusion that it was not possible to allocate additional resources or to switch resources to justify a £4·3 million investment in the canal.
The canal cannot be compared with the Victoria Line. I wish that we had on the canal a thousandth of the people who use the Victoria Line. It is not realistic to compare the canal with the motorway system, much as I should like to do that.
I must tell my hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley that we have not been shackled by bureaucracy, but we have been shackled by constraints on public expenditure in one of the most difficult economic periods in the history of the country.

Mr. Hardy: My hon. Friend talked about the cost of roads. Is he aware that the quarries, the bar mill and other industrial users of the canal do not need new roads because they are already adjacent to the canal? The Minister talked of the assessment of the figures after his visit to Rotherham. Does he remember the formidable economic and environmental case argued by an ex-mayor of Rotherham, Mr. Stanley Crowther? He suspects, and I share his suspicion, that the figure of 100,000 tons was among the figures considered, not 400,000 tons.

Mr. Howell: No. I have given the figures. I repeat that 400,000 is what we have included. I am willing to meet


the British Waterways Board or anyone else. I am giving the figures because I want my hon. Friends to analyse them as I have had to analyse them. If there are any doubts or difficulties about them, I hope that my hon. Friends will come and see us again.
What are we to do in view of all this? It is clear that the Government cannot take a decision to proceed with the scheme on this basis now, but we face the same problem, although not in such an acute form, for the rest of the canal system. I am as anxious as anybody to see the rest of the system developed and used, particularly for recreational and leisure purposes, and where practicable for transportation.
Therefore, in the consultation document about the future of the water industry which I published recently I made it perfectly clear that one of the proposals on which we were inviting consultation was a proposal that the board, and therefore the whole of our canal system, should move into a new national water authority and be merged with the water industry as a whole. I believe that that will happen It is sensible, and the amenity interests are coming round to the view that it is the only logical way in which we can bring our canal system up to date for recreational purposes. This decision would then be taken not so much by me or the Government as by the new national water authority, as part of its appraisal of the requirements of the water system as a whole.
We have moved in that direction for the simple reason that there is a multimillion-pound backlog of work required on the canal system just to bring it up to date. There are arrears of maintenance,

and we can see no prospect of obtaining the sort of money needed through the normal Treasury channels. Therefore, we can save the canal system, bring it up to date and use it as a modern recreational and leisure amenity facility for the people only if it is brought within the whole of the water industry. That would give it a much firmer foundation and a much wider opportunity to obtain the necessary public investment.

Mr. Giles Shaw: Will the Minister comment on the question of a transport commission for the region so that the problems of canals, railways and roads can all be examined at the same time?

Mr. Howell: I should not like to comment on that, because I have not thought about it.
When the Conservative Government reorganised water administration in 1973 they proposed that the canal system should be broken up on a regional basis. We bitterly opposed that, as did every amenity interest. We want a national network of canals so that the system can be maintained as a whole. We want additional canals built to bridge the gap in the north between east and west and so that people can sail round the whole country.
I am convinced that our proposals will give us that possibility for the first time. I also believe that it will keep alive the possibilities for this canal. I am as anxious to do that as is my hon. Friend who kindly initiated the debate, and whose continuing interest I much value.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-nine minutes past Ten o'clock.